Sneak a peek "Fly Away" (Firefly Lane) - Kristin Hannah

Description

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.

(Goodreads) 

 

Fly Away by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Firefly Lane duo was an emotional rollercoaster.
With the first book I experienced a constant ache, a story that resonated and made me cry. I longed for that kind of friendship and felt the characters’ disillusions and hurt, I loved the experience of a life in a book and the growth of both action and characters. The TullyandKate relationship with its ups and downs was all I needed in a story like that, their struggles and dreams and memories a perfect splash of color in a book that will stay with me for a while. The ending of book one, namely Kate’s death, was heartbreaking for a person like me whom I have a close and strong relationship with my mother. The mother-daughter bond was one of the aspects which touched me mostly.
Book two delves into a family’s grief, the loss of the person that bound them and kept them together – friend, daughter, wife, mother. The sequel came as a surprise and I didn’t expect to embark in another fully emotional boat, but it was, not with an equal impact as the first book but nonetheless teary. The author presents the life – after Kate’s death – of the characters’ most hit by her absence – Tully, Johnny, Marah - and blends the present tragic events with an image of afterlife, the choice of living or dying, the act of forgiveness and unconditional love. Dorothy’s story is that something new and is such a tragic one that is impossible to not ache for the woman and pity her for what she has been through. This mother-daughter reunion was a long time coming one and it was redeeming.
TullyandKate friendship is one that defies the laws and lives beyond death. Even if this second book may have been unnecessary, a look in the future and how the characters’ life fell apart and built itself again is a beautiful touch and I enjoyed it all the same.

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