Raine, Raine Went Away

(Paperback)

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Raine Moss has memory problems, but when her sister Dorsey suggests a doctor's visit, Raine's husband, Hartley, laughs it off as just part of his wife's zany personality. But following an enigmatic trip to the Bahamas with her husband, Raine's mental condition takes a dark turn, and it is no longer anything to laugh about. Dorsey lives in Taos, New Mexico, only an hour from her sister in Santa Fe. After Dorsey pressures Hartley to seek medical attention, he relents, and at fifty-three, Raine is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. At that point, Hartley seizes control of his wife's finances and health care by declaring her legally incompetent.
Dorsey grows concerned as her sister becomes depressed and withdrawn. Finally, one afternoon, she makes a surprise visit to Raine's house. Hartley is away, and the housekeeper takes Dorsey to her sister's bedroom. Raine is napping, but Dorsey sees that Raine has gone from an erstwhile beauty queen to a snoring exoskeleton, someone Dorsey barely recognizes. She needs to learn more about Raine's domineering husband and accesses his computer. Hartley has left a window open, and when Dorsey taps a key, BOOM! What she finds is horrifying, and her life changes forever. Now she is compelled to fight for her sister's sanity and freedom from a monster.
When Bogart Dudley dies suddenly, Raine inherits the family's ancestral home in the North Georgia Mountains. But Hartley, a gambling addict, is furious she didn't inherit any money. As a result, his plans to settle debts were thwarted, forcing him to devise another, more sinister way to find some quick cash. However, his blackmail scheme unearths some secrets that will cost him dearly.
Dorsey, her sister Margaret and Tessa, Raine's daughter, cajole Hartley into moving Raine to a memory care unit at Waterhaven, a posh senior living facility in Atlanta. Here, Raine reacquaints with her cousin, MaryEtta DeRenne, who has created and endowed a magnificent garden for the residents. At forty-three, Etta is Waterhaven's youngest resident and suffers from a malady that requires her to be near a hospital. The two women couldn't be more opposite: Raine, a former debutante, and Etta, home-schooled due to merciless teasing over a physical deformity. Nevertheless, Raine and Etta bond, and when blind Dr. Broadmoor joins them, an unconventional love story is born. Dementia, addiction, trafficking, and abuse are themes scattered throughout the story, but inside Etta's garden, we learn there are miracles, even though some are bittersweet.

Author Bio

KATHERINE TAULMAN VAUGHAN (KATHY} is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, born many years after Sherman's appalling march to the sea.

An English major at Stratford Junior College in Virginia, she transferred to the University of Georgia to study Journalism. More recently she attended the Iowa School of Writing's summer workshop where she studied fiction and Faulkner. It was there she discovered that she wasn't a literary writer at all. Nope, instead, she created a new genre: Conversational Writing. In other words, there's no flowery language, no hidden meaning, no esoteric philosophy. She writes like she talks.

Kathy's first marriage ended after 10 years and produced two children. She later married Lewis Grizzard, a Southern humorist, who encouraged Kathy to resurrect her love of writing. Sadly, Lewis suffered recurring bouts of the booze flu, which brought an end to their connubial state. They accepted that they fought better as friends than spouses.

After that rather public divorce, the ex-Mrs. Grizzard felt compelled to leave home and introduce her children to another part of the country. Yellowstone Park seduced her, and she married a kind man who was manager of a guest ranch near Livingston, Montana.

While living in the West, Kathy received a call from Lewis and an editor at Peachtree Publishers. They asked her to write a book about life in the South married to a good ole' boys like Lewis. It was entitled How to Tame a Wild Bore which was followed by From Debutante to Doublewide. The latter is a spine-tingling account of a southern belle plucked from the Land o' Cotton and planted in a cowboy town with more bars than churches.

She returned to the South in 1995, alone, answering the call of sweet-smelling grits trees that came to her in dreams. Alas, the same feeling was not shared by her Montana man, so yet another catch-and-release episode transpired, and it had nothing to do with fish.

In the summers, Kathy, her husband of twenty-three years and Tinkerbell (an aging teacup Pomeranian that bites) sneak off to the mountains of North Carolina. It is there she indulges her passion for flowers.

Raine's story is Kathy's first fiction, and she is currently finishing the screenplay of a film by the same name.