LOVING THE DEAD AND GONE

A freak car crash in 1960s rural North Carolina puts in motion moments of grace that bring redemption to two generations of women and the lives they touch.

For forty years Aurilla Cutter has tended a clutch of secrets that have turned her mean. A fatal accident becomes the catalyst for the release of the passions, needs, and hurts in everyone affected by her hidden past. Darlene, a seventeen -year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her dead husband while proving herself still alive. Soon loss and death work their magic, drawing Darlene into an unlikely affair that threatens to upend Aurilla’s family, and sets loose Aurilla’s own memories of longing and infidelity.

As Aurilla’s forbidden and heartbreaking story of love, death, and repeated loss alternates with Darlene’s, the divide of generations and time narrows and collapses, building to the unlikely collision of two women’s yearnings, which will free them both from the past. Loving the Dead and Gone is a lyrical novel that explores how both grief and love are the ties that bind.