The Distance from the Heart of Things

Meet Mavis Black, whose confidently intimate voice invites readers into the eccentric world of her large southern family. Coming home from college to her grandfather's prosperous Carolina vineyard, Mavis takes the measure of the emotional distance she has traveled from the people closest to her heart: her dreamy mother, her practical aunt, her bewildered boyfriend, her prodigal uncle - and most of all Punk, her grandfather, who plans to make Mavis his sole heir. Told with warmth, wit, and brio, Warlick's first novel rejoices in womanhood and the strength of loving ties. As New York Newsday said of Warlick, "Her literary talents, not to mention her prospects, are immense."

Ashley Warlick is the author of The Summer After June and The Distance from the Heart of Things, for which she became the youngest ever recipient of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. She graduated from Dickinson College in 1994 and now lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with her family.