The Ballad of Ami Miles

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Description

Raised in isolation at Heavenly Shepherd, her family's trailer-dealership-turned-survival compound, Ami Miles knows that she was lucky to be born into a place of safety after the old world ended and the chaos began. But when her grandfather arranges a marriage to a cold-eyed stranger, she realizes that her "destiny" as one of the few females capable of still bearing children isn't something she's ready to face. With the help of one of her aunts, she flees the only life she's ever known and sets off on a quest to find her long-lost mother (and hopefully a mate of her own choosing). But as she journeys, Ami discovers many new things about the world-and about herself.

Reviews

"The first-person narrative gives the reader vivid images of a world struggling to start over, and weighs the risks of individuality against the benefits of a secure community....This is optimistic post-apocalyptic fiction." --Booklist

"Alley takes on a number of complex topics, including individual freedom, women's rights, sexual identity, and racism... intriguing take on themes reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale." --School Library Journal

Author Bio

Kristy Dallas Alley is a high school librarian in Memphis, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, four kids, three cats, and an indeterminate number of fish. She studied creative writing at Rhodes College in another lifetime and holds a master of science in instruction and curriculum leadership from the University of Memphis. In an ideal world, she would do nothing but sit on a beach and read every single day of her life, but in reality she's pretty happy reading on her front porch, neglecting the gardens she enthusiastically plants each spring, and cooking huge meals regardless of the number of people around to eat them. The Ballad of Ami Miles is her debut novel.