Fly Away – Review – Ashes Books & Bobs

(If you plan to read Firefly Lane, you may want to skip this review as it will contain spoilers.)

Fly Away is the continuation of Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah and a resolution I didn’t know I needed. This series is coming to Netflix next year, so I wanted to be certain to finish the books before the first season became available.

I opted for the audiobook, through Overdrive, and it ended up being a perfect choice. I was easily sucked back into the lives of Kate’s family and Tully as if I hadn’t missed a beat.

BLURB:

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.

This story was sad. So sad from the very beginning of the book. If the author hooks me, as Kristin Hannah always seems to do, I feel every emotion along with the characters, living and breathing their happiness and pain as they are. Kristin Hannah is one of the best authors at creating characters who feel like real people. Naturally, this story felt incredibly heavy and made me feel a sense of despair throughout nearly the entire story. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore what happened with the characters after Kate’s untimely death. The grief the characters faced was human and raw. It was astonishing to see the consequences of the loss of a person and how multiple lives could spiral out of control as a result of grief. Ultimately, Kate was the glue that held numerous people together and they were left scrambling to stick together without her. It was truly heartbreaking and realistic to behold.

However, in true Kristin Hannah fashion, she was able to break my heart and piece it back together again throughout the course of the story. This is one of the many reasons she continues to be one of my favorite authors. I received numerous answers I didn’t know I craved. I grew to love these flawed characters in Firefly Lane, as if they were friends I’d grown close to, and was glad to catch up with them again. Somehow this book made me feel more alive and made me want to evaluate how I show my love to everyone in my life. Our time here is short, we never know how short, and our legacy of love is all we leave behind. Kate’s legacy was imperfect but exactly as it should have been – her love continued to be evident long after she was gone.

Despite how difficult parts of this story were to get through because they were so unbearably depressing, I’m astounded by the realness of this series. I can’t wait to see how it will translate to the screen.

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase on Amazon.
(Audiobook)