Fly Away
Return to the world of FIREFLY LANE--now a Netflix series--from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah.
Once, a long time ago, I walked down a night-darkened road called Firefly Lane, all alone, on the worst night of my life, and I found a kindred spirit. That was our beginning. More than thirty years ago. TullyandKate. You and me against the world. Best friends forever. But stories end, don't they? You lose the people you love and you have to find a way to go on. . . . Tully Hart has always been larger than life, a woman fueled by big dreams and driven by memories of a painful past. She thinks she can overcome anything until her best friend, Kate Ryan, dies. Tully tries to fulfill her deathbed promise to Kate--to be there for Kate's children--but Tully knows nothing about family or motherhood or taking care of people. Sixteen-year-old Marah Ryan is devastated by her mother's death. Her father, Johnny, strives to hold the family together, but even with his best efforts, Marah becomes unreachable in her grief. Nothing and no one seems to matter to her . . . until she falls in love with a young man who makes her smile again and leads her into his dangerous, shadowy world. Dorothy Hart--the woman who once called herself Cloud--is at the center of Tully's tragic past. She repeatedly abandoned her daughter, Tully, as a child, but now she comes back, drawn to her daughter's side at a time when Tully is most alone. At long last, Dorothy must face her darkest fear: Only by revealing the ugly secrets of her past can she hope to become the mother her daughter needs. A single, tragic choice and a middle-of-the-night phone call will bring these women together and set them on a poignant, powerful journey of redemption. Each has lost her way, and they will need each one another--and maybe a miracle--to transform their lives. An emotionally complex, heart-wrenching novel about love, motherhood, loss, and new beginnings, Fly Away reminds us that where there is life, there is hope, and where there is love, there is forgiveness. Told with her trademark powerful storytelling and illuminating prose, Kristin Hannah reveals why she is one of the most beloved writers of our day.BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Lively story about love and loss. Coming of age -at all ages, the redemption of human connection. Tully has it all, or at least looks that way, until her BFF dies of cancer. Kate’s death puts her family in a downward spiral, which we see most clearly in her teenage daughter Marah. Realistic characters.
A beautiful sequel to Fire Fly Lane. Love, Loss, grief, recovery, faith and forgiveness... This is a powerful story that has it all. You will cry. You will laugh. You will be triggered. You will smile. You will cry some more.
This was a rough read, especially when I enjoyed firefly lane so much. It should have been a few chapters shorter. Lots of repetitive phrasing. And it's depressing. The whole thing. And I'll say it, it's lazy writing in a few spots. I anticipated the author would gloss over Clouds second hospital stay, and she did. If you don't want to write about something, then don't write it. Don't give some b.s. account of "too painful to think about." It's fiction!!
Firefly Lane was the book that transformed Kristin Hannah’s career. And of her twenty-six book oeuvre, Fly Away is her sole sequel. Firefly Lane is a “serrated reminder that time can move too fast sometimes, gathering regrets along the way…Regret and fear and worry braid together and become [a] spine, the things that hold [us] up...Sometimes one person can hold you up in life, keep you standing, and without that hand to hold, you can find yourself free-falling no matter how strong you used to be, no matter how hard you try to remain steady.” Fly Away is Kate’s goodbye to Tully. “‘I need you to say goodbye to me and smile’… ‘I’m afraid.’ ‘Fly away.’”
“In the end, that’s all the luggage you take with you. Love and memories are what last. That’s why your life flashes before your eyes when you die–you’re picking the memories you want. It’s like packing…Xmas, Holiday, Winter, Summer, Baby Clothes, etc. In those boxes would be evidence of lives, the boxed trail that leads one back to the beginning…Clothes are like a scrapbook of our lives…I’m in your memories…Love is what lasts.”
“Fly Away is a novel about love and loss, family and friendship, and everything in between. It’s also about the pursuit of the American Dream,” being and becoming American in “the freewheeling sixties and the material girl-eighties.” It’s “a novel about what happens when the one person who matters to you–the person who holds a whole family together–is lost…If there’s a lesson at the heart of Fly Away it is that you can’t run from your problems or your failures; and, sometimes, if you stand your ground and dare to forgive…You can make a second chance for yourself and the people you love…A great novel can cross bridges and bring people together, and this is one of the best stories of all time.”
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