Western North Carolina native Wiley Cash writes about his homeland in his debut novel, A Land More Kind than Home (William Morrow, hardcover, $24.99, releases 4/17/12), a story about a child who witnesses the unthinkable during a church healing service, forcing him to question his ideas about family and faith. Mr. Cash will be donating a portion of his proceeds from this event to the Greenville Literacy Association.

Religion is supposed to shield children from the horrors of the world, but one Sunday, nine-year-old Jess Hall watches as his autistic brother is called into a little church in the mountains of North Carolina. What happens next forces Jess to question everything he once believed about his family and his faith. Clem Barefield, the local sheriff, arrives to find a group of charismatic believers who are unwilling to utter a word about the things Jess has seen. At the center of the mystery is Carson Chambliss, a snake-handling ex-convict-turned-preacher whose past is just as mysterious as the power he claims to possess.

The first person Sheriff Barefield turns to is Adelaide Lyle, the church matriarch, a woman whose good-sense brand of religion straddles the divide between blind faith and cold fact. Her understanding of both the spiritual and the natural world makes her predictions of a violent reckoning just as viable as they are unavoidable. Jess is the lynchpin for this violence, and he tries to navigate an adult world where the truth is something hidden from children, even if they know things about it that adults do not.

A Land More Kind than Home is a literary thriller, thick with stories and characters connected by faith, infidelity, addiction, and a sense of hope that is as tragic as it is unforgettable. Readers of Ron Rash and John Hart will fall in love with novelist Wiley Cash.

Wiley Cash is from Western North Carolina, a region that figures prominently in his fiction. His stories have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Roanoke Review, and The Carolina Quarterly. A Land More Kind than Home is his first novel.

Wiley holds a B.A. in Literature from the University of North Carolina-Asheville, an M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and a PhD. in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. He has received grants and fellowships from the Asheville Area Arts Council, the Thomas Wolfe Society, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo.

He and his wife currently live in West Virginia where he teaches fiction writing and American literature at Bethany College. He also teaches in the Low-Residency M.F.A. Program in Fiction and Nonfiction Writing at Southern New Hampshire University.

Mr. Cash is donating proceeds from his book tour to local literacy associations at each stop. Our local Greenville association, where a portion of the author's proceeds from his Book Your Lunch event here are being donated, is the Greenville Literacy Association, the largest community-based adult literacy program in South Carolina and one of the most highly developed in the nation. Greenville Literacy recruits and trains community volunteers to provide instruction for adults who request assistance. Greenville Literacy has expanded its services to five fully equipped and staffed learning centers across Greenville County and assists church and neighbordhood literacy programs near these centers.

If you cannot make the event, you can reserve a personalized copy of A Land More Kind than Home by contacting Fiction Addiction in advance at 864-675-0540 or at info@fiction-addiction.com.

ABOUT FICTION ADDICTION

Fiction Addiction is a local, woman-owned, independent bookstore established in 2001. The store carries a mixture of new and used fiction and nofiction, including children's books, as well as gift items. For more information, visit our website at http://www.fiction-addiction.com or call us at 864-675-0540.

ABOUT BOOK YOUR LUNCH

The Book Your Lunch author event program was launched in September 2009, and is a new way to bring authors and readers together -- right here in Greenville. This luncheon series provides the ultimate food for thought with a wide range of authors -- from mystery writers, to award-winning regional novelists to nonfiction and cookbook authors. Jill Hendrix, the owner of Fiction Addiction, founded the event program and is responsible for book the authors. Book Your Lunch is co-sponsored by Greenville's independent restaurant group, Table 301. For more information about Book Your Lunch, please visit our website at http://www.bookyourlunch.com.

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