The Cherokee Rose

February 9, 2015
This well-researched, intriguing historical novel from MacArthur fellow Miles (The House on Diamond Hill) delves into the little-known story of the prosperous Cherokee slaveholders in the antebellum South. In the present day, Jinx Micco, a Cherokee-Creek part-time librarian and newspaper columnist, lives in Ocmulgee, Okla. While conducting tribal research, she looks in to a missionary school on Cherokee chief James Hold’s plantation in Georgia, called the Cherokee Rose. She discovers his manor house, now a state museum strapped for funds, is going up for auction and travels to the Cherokee Rose to learn the true fate of one student, Mary Ann Battis. Meanwhile, Cheyenne Cotterell, a wealthy interior designer from Atlanta, decides to buy the Cherokee Rose in order to set up an upscale bed-and-breakfast and get back to her Native American roots. The third protagonist is Ruth Mayes, a magazine writer from Minneapolis and Cheyenne’s childhood friend, who arrives at the Cherokee Rose to write a feature story. When Cheyenne’s $1.5 million offer outbids the real estate tycoon Mason Allen, she makes a vengeful enemy. Jinx, Ruth, and Cheyenne form a sisterly alliance and befriend Adam Battis, an unemployed park ranger, former caretaker of the museum, and descendent of Chief Hold. The women soon unearth a lost diary, which brings to a close Miles’s wrenching yet enlightening saga. Readers will be taken with the way this novel blends past and present.

February 1, 2015
A buried, early-19th-century diary, the fragrance of wild white roses and the rustling of river-cane reeds bring to life this refreshing debut novel by Miles, a winner of a MacArthur Fellowship (American Culture/Univ. of Michigan; The House on Diamond Hill, 2010, etc.).Jennifer "Jinx" Micco, a Cherokee-Creek reporter for the Muscogee Nation News in Oklahoma, Cheyenne Cotterell, a wealthy interior designer and genealogy buff from Atlanta, and Ruth Mayes, a grief-stricken home-and-garden magazine writer from Minneapolis, investigate their possible ties to the Hold House, a Cherokee plantation in the North Georgia foothills once inhabited by Cherokee-Scottish Chief James Vann Hold, his two wives, his many children and his African-American slaves. Early in the novel, the pre-Trail of Tears history of Cherokee slaveholders and Christian missionaries overwhelms the narrative. But the pace picks up after Jinx and Cheyenne discover the 1815 diary belonging to missionary Anna Rosina Gamble, whose detailed account of her and her pastor husband's establishment of a Moravian church on the plantation, along with her relationship with her favorite pupil, Mary Ann Battis, upends everything Jinx, Cheyenne and Ruth thought they knew about their heritage. Anna's vibrant voice is the most dynamic in the novel: "Our hope of bringing the Gospel here has yet to find fertile ground. It looks very dark in this land." And it's through Anna's entries that Miles' keen understanding of Cherokee slave owners and the braided lineages of Cherokee Indians and African-Americans shines through.An enchanting examination of bloodlines, legacy and the myriad branches of a diverse family tree.

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April 1, 2015

Miles (The House on Diamond Hill) crafts a moving historical novel around the intersecting stories of five women: three in the present and two in the past. All have chipped shoulders, but each one pins her hopes of confrontation and healing on a Georgia plantation. Owned by Chief James Hold in the early 19th century, the Cherokee Rose Plantation is operated with cruelty, although the chief agrees to host an Indian mission school to play nice with the local government. The missionaries and students transform the plantation in ways they could never have anticipated, creating ripples that would last into the present, when Jinx, Ruth, and Cheyenne all come to its doors for their own reasons. Miles effortlessly re-creates plantation life, but the women of this story are never overshadowed by their world. They are all complex female characters who are, yes, "strong," but also canny, uncertain, and headstrong. In other words, they are like real people: eager to both confront their issues and avoid them at all costs. VERDICT With the character arcs and the exploration of an often-overlooked area of history--the Native American ownership of African slaves--this is solid choice for book clubs that savor meaty discussion.--Liza Oldham, Beverly, MA

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