Kara is one of two children of Andrew James Taylor and Sarah Veronica Lester, the other being her slightly older brother, Edan Joseph Taylor. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

She discovered, at a very young age, she had a disease known as Clinical Homesickness, which meant that she was unable to travel far from her home without becoming physically ill. This did not ever stop her from enjoying her childhood, though, and she eventually met Sam Thornbody, and, over the course of the next several years, became good and close friends with him.

When she became 18 years old, she made the decision that, despite her illness, she would follow Sam to college in Huntington as she did not want it ruining her life. Over the next few years in college, Kara grew even closer to Sam as a friend.. Sadly, it seemed at first that Kara and Sam would have very little time together while in college, as Sam became very dedicated to his classwork. Ths, though, gave Kara the ability to make another new friend by the name of Greydon Heathcliff.

Kara and Greydon eventually became so close that they dated for about a year. When Greydon reached his point of graduation though, rather than forcing Greydon to wait for her to finish school, the two decided to let each other move on and find other people. This was the point where Kara and Sam's friendship became stronger. Over the next couple years, Kara and Sam would talk more and more, which eventually led to several romantic dates together.

Shortly after the two graduated, Kara and Sam decided to marry. They spent about half a year together in Huntington, before having to move up to The Big Island in Hawaii to accommodate a client of Sam's. They lived there for just under a year before Kara gave birth to their son Bobby. The three remained in Hawaii for approximately five years, until it reached a point where the client there no longer needed Sam's help. The intent was to still live there, but Sam began to notice that being so far away from where she was born, was starting to have negative effects on her health. It was decided to move back to Huntington since, although she would still not quite be home, she could still drive or fly there whenever she wanted, and because the two found that they both enjoyed it there. When asked why she did not want to just move back to Georgia, Kara would never give any real reason other than 'wanting to stay near her friends in Huntington'.

Around age 33 though, when a client of Sam's forced a move to Georgia anyway, it was decided that, despite not being happy about it themselves, and despite it meaning moving their son away from his friends, the three moved there This began to finally relax Kara and her illness began to subside. It had been decided, by Kara and Sam, that it would be best to get a divorce so that Sam could continue to do his job without making Kara ill and Kara could then stay in Georgia and be free to live her life, but that divorce never came. When Sam and Kara saw just how heartbroken Bobby became on the day of the divorce, it was called off, since neither could stand to hurt their son in that way.

During the time in Georgia, though, Kara and Sam also learned that Bobby had apparently been born with the same disease Kara had, which had only really begun to show signs while there in Georgia. Though they hated doing it, it was decided to send Sam and Bobby back to Huntington, so that Bobby could be well again. Kara stayed with her college friend Greydon, where the three had been living while in Georgia, and the other two went back home to West Virginia.