Gaylier Miller

Peggy Gaylier Miller

PEGGY, the third historical novel of the "Interwoven" series, begins in early 1917, in Milton, Florida, when the aspiring pianist, Peggy Susan MacDonald, is seventeen. In subsequent chapters, the story flashes back to 1865 in Coon Hill, Florida, when Nancy O'Neill and John MacDonald first meet, and then jumps, briefly, to 1898, before Peggy is born. Peggy plays the leading role in this story, but she carries with her an expanding cast of supporting characters who lived before and then along with her. Peggy is the much younger sister of Nelda MacDonald, the character who married Cleve McMillan, the main character in the previous novel, CLEVE. Peggy is mentioned only briefly in CLEVE, just as Cleve is mentioned only briefly in the first novel, WAITING DEER. The theme of all three books focuses on the mix of cultures who move into, meet, meld, and/or clash in northwest Florida. during this period in American history. In WAITING DEER, the principal struggle stems from the clashing of three races into the Coon Hill community cloth. In the second book, CLEVE, the character Cleveland McMillan grows up with unanswered questions regarding his past and a passion to find answers. He learns he cannot change the past, but he wants, desperately, to do something which will help the world. In the end, both Cleve, and, years later, Peggy, move away from Coon Hill, but they always remain tied in various ways to the past which has helped shape their lives. All three novels end within a week of one another in 1946. By the end of PEGGY, the reader comes to understand well why this series is titled "Interwoven."