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FIREFLY LANE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008

Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...

Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest ( Magic Hour , 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.

Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today -like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3

Page Count: 496

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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BOOK TO SCREEN

THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

SEEN & HEARD

THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s ( I Found You , 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Pub Date: April 24, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE

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by Lisa Jewell

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Reviews of Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

Firefly Lane

by Kristin Hannah

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
• Wash. Ore. Idaho
• Contemporary
• Coming of Age
• Mid-Life Onwards
• Female Friendships
• Strong Women

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About this Book

Book summary.

From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—-beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—-jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you—-and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.

CHAPTER ONE

They used to be called the Firefly Lane girls. That was a long time ago—more than three decades—but just now, as she lay in bed listening to a winter storm raging outside, it seemed like yesterday. In the past week (unquestionably the worst seven days of her life), she'd lost the ability to distance herself from the memories. Too often lately in her dreams it was 1974; she was a teenager again, coming of age in the shadow of a lost war, riding her bike beside her best friend in a darkness so complete it was like being invisible. The place was relevant only as a reference point, but she remembered it in vivid detail: a meandering ribbon of asphalt bordered on either side by gullies of murky water and hillsides of shaggy grass. Before they met, that road seemed to go nowhere at all; it was just a country lane named after an insect no one had ever seen in this rugged blue and green corner of the world. Then they saw it through each other's eyes....

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Review: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah is a story about a friendship throughout the decades.

The first Kristin Hannah book I read was The Nightingale , which I think is one of the best historical fiction novels ever written. I’ve also read The Great Alone , another well-written book. Both stories are pretty intense at times and rich with historical details.

I decided to read Firefly Lane , an older novel of hers, after I saw the Netflix trailer. Knowing her as an epic historical fiction storyteller, I was curious about how she approaches a more women’s fiction type of story.

And I liked it enough. Of course, she’s always such a great writer. But I had a couple issues with this one.

The Synopsis

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition.

On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become  TullyandKate.  Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest,  Firefly Lane  is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. 

From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. 

Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend. . . .

For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.

The Decades

If you think the synopsis is lengthy, the story itself clocks in at 479 pages! There’s no reason for it to be this long. No reason. Yes, it goes through many decades—covers 30 years—but I can tell you that several sections could have been trimmed or cut out.

To be honest, I just wasn’t feeling the ’70s and the beginning of Tully and Kate’s friendship. It felt really cliché. Tully is the bright star who receives all the attention, but suffers from abandonment issues. Kate is the shy and awkward friend who always serves as the supporting cast to Tully’s main act.

Maybe I’ve just read too many stories like this, but I was a bit disappointed the same cliché carries throughout this novel. There is some nuance as both are envious of each other at different points in the story. But again, a little generic overall.

That said, I really liked the ’80s section, when they’re in college. And especially when they’re at their first jobs, working in broadcast news. That to me, was the strongest part of the novel.

Tully and Kate

Everything in this one revolves around Tully and Kate’s friendship and I do think there’s something special about a novel dedicated to female friendships. And you do see why they’re friends, for the most part. It’s interesting to see them grow and evolve, yet in some cases, remain the same.

Tully is obnoxious more often than not but I do like her drive to become a successful journalist. But Tully’s selfishness does sometimes come with a cost. Her mother has done a number on her that makes it difficult for Tully to have a long-term relationships, other than with Kate.

I do think Kate’s character arc is a bit disappointing in some ways. She doesn’t love the news, but goes into it to follow Tully’s lead (and because she develops a crush on her boss). Kate always dreamed of true love and becoming a wife and mother—but that doesn’t really provide much satisfaction. It just seemed Kate was sidelined, even though she’s supposed to be an equal star.

All that said, this one really does turn into an emotional ride and the ending really got to me. Therefore, I liked it overall. If I were to rank this one, I would give Firefly Lane a solid 3 1/2 stars.

If you want to read this novel before or even after watching the Netflix show, I think it’s worth your time. But keep in mind the length of this one. There is also a sequel to this novel, called Fly Away . It’s still up in the air on whether I’ll read that one or not due to the all the clichés in this one.

If your book club is reading Firefly Lane , be sure to check out my book club questions .

You May Also Like

Theresa Smith Writes

Delighting in all things bookish, book review: firefly lane by kristin hannah, firefly lane (tv tie-in edition), about the book:.

Firefly Lane is an unforgettable coming of age story, by the New York Times number one bestseller Kristin Hannah.

It is 1974 and the summer of love is drawing to a close. Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the secondary school social food chain. Then, to her amazement, Tully Hart – the girl all the boys want to know – moves in across the street and wants to be her best friend. Tully and Kate became inseparable and by summer’s end they vow that their friendship will last forever.

For thirty years Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship, jealousy, anger, hurt and resentment. Tully follows her ambition to find fame and success. Kate knows that all she wants is to fall in love and have a family. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and a mother will change her.

They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart. But when tragedy strikes, can the bonds of friendship survive? Or is it the one hurdle that even a lifelong friendship cannot overcome?

My Thoughts:

I’ve had this book on my shelf for a long time as I bought quite a lot of Kristin Hannah’s backlist a few years ago after reading three of her books and knowing that her writing was a good fit for my reading. As is my way, I bought a lot of them, but didn’t read all of them (yet), but there’s nothing like a pending TV series about to drop to get you moving on a book. Firefly Lane will be released by Netfilx next week and I knew that if I didn’t read the book before the watching the series, I likely never would.

I’ve read many Kristin Hannah novels now and loved them all. While I enjoyed Firefly Lane, and it definitely brought a tear to my eye “Beaches” style towards the end, it’s not my favourite Kristin Hannah. It’s a bit of a hard one to pin down, actually, in terms of the type of novel that it is. It’s a character driven narrative and all of the plot points are directly related to the characters lives rather than driving the narrative itself. It was often a slow read, spending decades with these two girls as they grow into women and progress through their lives. Sometimes there was a lot happening, at other times not as much. I do like the whole coming of age character narrative but I did feel at times as though there was no point, no destination, so to speak, other than simply following these two women as they progressed through the years of their lives and their friendship.

My biggest issue with this book is that I hated Tully. I adored Kate, but Tully was a difficult character for me to endure. She is an absolute narcissist, of the kind that whenever she would do something to hurt someone that resulted in them expressing their hurt or anger to her, she would then have an expectation for them to apologise to her for the way they had treated her – as though she were the wronged one! I just couldn’t stand this and she never changed, never improved, never grew up. She just became this famous and wealthy pain in the backside that everyone had to endure. It will be interesting to see what they do with her in the TV series. I sincerely hope she is not as insufferable on the screen as she was on the page. And I know, she had all of these ‘mother’ issues. So do I and I don’t act like that. She was also, for the most part, a really rubbish friend to Kate, and while she was there for her in the end, I honestly wasn’t sold on why Kate wanted her to be!

Kate was the saving grace of this novel and a big reason as to why I enjoyed it overall. She was just a beautiful character and highly relatable. I enjoyed the supporting cast of her family as well, particularly her mother and husband, although her daughter was almost as insufferable as Tully. Perhaps I’m just not in the right headspace for relating to narcissistic drama queens as present?! The story that emerges for Kate was tragic and really made me sad for her, for all that she had worked so hard for and a tried to accomplish for her family. It really made me think about how precious life is and how we just can’t take good health for granted. The last quarter of this novel is a real tear jerker and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a box of tissues handy for watching it all unfold in the TV series.

A bright and shining aspect of this novel was the way in which Kristin Hannah wove moments from history into the narrative. The novel spanned decades, beginning in the seventies, and she gives the reader such a sense of time throughout. The death of John Lennon and Princess Diana, the Gulf War, the attack on the twin towers; all of these moments of history – and more – interwoven alongside the changing music and fashions of each decade, the roles of women in the workforce versus the home. This injection of history was a real winner for me and kept me almost more enthralled than the actual story and characters.

I know a lot of people who have said that this is their favourite Kristin Hannah novel. While it didn’t quite reach those heights for me, I still enjoyed it and look forward to watching the Netflix series. If this is the only Kristin Hannah you have read and you were left underwhelmed, I urge you to read one of her other novels, she really is a great talent.

About the Author:

Kristin Hannah is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels. She is a former lawyer turned writer and is the mother of one son. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle, and Hawaii. Her most recent novel, Night Road, was one of eight books selected for the UK’s 2011 TV Book Club Summer Read.

Firefly Lane (TV Tie-in Edition) Published by Pan Released 17th December 2020

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3 thoughts on “ book review: firefly lane by kristin hannah ”.

I really liked Winter Garden and True Colors. I am currently reading her upcoming The Four Winds

Like Liked by 1 person

I really liked those two as well. I’m looking forward to reading The Four Winds.

Just finished watching the season on Netflix and enjoyed it. Might check out the book too.

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, firefly lane.

"'Remember Firefly Lane?' Tully said, lowering her voice. Over the years those words had become a catchall phrase, a kind of shorthand for their memories. It was their way of saying that a friendship begun at fourteen, back when David Cassidy was groovy and a song could make you cry, would last forever." At times during Kristin Hannah's new novel, FIREFLY LANE, the portrait of two women's 30-year friendship, it seems unlikely that the relationship between these very different individuals will last forever.

Even more unlikely is the fact that they would become such fast friends as teenagers in the first place. But, as Hannah explores skillfully and powerfully in FIREFLY LANE, that’s one of the most surprising --- and valuable --- things about friendship. It doesn't have to make sense all the time. It just has to work. And, for the most part, Kate and Tully's friendship does work well, right from that unlikely beginning.

"It's hard not to compare Hannah's new novel to the beloved movie Beaches . This lifelong story of two female best friends --- one exalted, one humble --- will strike many of the same chords that left moviegoers weeping after that film. FIREFLY LANE, however, is a much richer, more complex and more satisfying story than any movie could be."

Kate Mularkey is having an awkward time transitioning from childhood to the teenage years. Wearing unfashionable hand-me-downs and failing to pay attention to her hair or makeup, she has few school friends. So when beautiful, stylish Talullah ("Tully") Hart moves onto her street, Kate feels sure that this gorgeous stranger will simply ignore plain old ordinary Kate, just like everyone else always has. During the summer of 1974, though, Kate discovers that despite her confident exterior, Tully, who has suffered a series of abandonments by her drug-addicted mother, needs a best friend just as much as Kate herself does. And in Kate --- and the Mularkeys --- Tully finds not only a friendship but also a sort of family, one that will follow her through the next three decades.

Tully is a go-getter. At the age of 14, she announces that she will be a newswoman just like the female anchors who were getting started at the time. Kate, too, announces that she shares this dream. But unlike Tully, her heart is never in it. And as Tully rockets to the top of the glamorous worlds of television and entertainment, Kate settles for a more humble existence, one that mystifies Tully as well as Kate's women's lib-touting mother. Constantly battling self-doubt, concerns that her husband still burns a torch for the more beautiful Tully, and worries that she is not being a good mother to her own teenage daughter, Kate lives a very different lifestyle from Tully, whose main concerns include dating gorgeous men, accepting high-paying jobs, going to exotic locations --- and battling profound loneliness. In spite of the distance of years, geography and very different choices, the two girls once known simply as "TullyandKate" remain each other's anchors during 30 years of life's challenges, surprises and tragedies.

It's hard not to compare Hannah's new novel to the beloved movie Beaches . This lifelong story of two female best friends --- one exalted, one humble --- will strike many of the same chords that left moviegoers weeping after that film. FIREFLY LANE, however, is a much richer, more complex and more satisfying story than any movie could be. In the course of close to 500 pages, Hannah gives readers a window into these women's lives --- separately and together --- making her audience feel almost as if they have two best friends of their own.

FIREFLY LANE will appeal most to women of a certain age, those who came of age during the 1980s, who benefited from the women's movement and were told they could "have it all" --- even though some of them didn't necessarily want it all. Hannah clearly revels in including authentic period details, particularly descriptions of fashions, fads and popular music that will have readers who lived through those decades smiling in recognition. Younger and older women, though, will also find much to treasure in these pages --- in fact, anyone who has ever had a best friend will recognize themselves in Kate and Tully's friendship.

"I guess no one stays friends for more than thirty years without a few broken hearts along the way," says Kate near the end of the novel. Indeed, the chronicle of Kate and Tully's decades-long friendship resembles that of a long-time marriage --- with high points and low, closeness and distance, misunderstandings and reconciliations --- and illustrates the work required to keep all relationships flourishing over time. "Remember Firefly Lane?" Tully asks Kate when both are still young women. Over the course of a lifetime, they do --- and readers won't soon forget it either.

Reviewed by Norah Piehl on February 5, 2008

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

• Publication Date: February 5, 2008
• Genres: Fiction
• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• ISBN-10: 0312364083
• ISBN-13: 9780312364083

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Firefly Lane

Behind the book.

Without question, this is the biggest, most complex novel I’ve written to date. It covers a thirty-plus year time span and yet manages to be an extremely intimate and personal story of friendship. What I particularly loved about writing this novel was the memories it evoked. Fads, fashion, products, songs, novels, and news stories—this book contains all of that. In these pages, I was able to return to my youth, the disco era, and drink Boone’s Farm with my heroine…and tease my hair and dance to Madonna…and jump into my fictional suburban world and run carpool one more time. Not only does the story follow the friendship between two women, it also tracks the ever changing face of the Pacific Northwest. It also contains my most important and powerful message to date, and for that I am particularly proud. I can’t wait to hear what readers think.

Hmmm…fun facts behind Firefly Lane . This novel hits really close to home on a lot of levels, so there are plenty of correlations to my own life. First and foremost-the clothes. Yes, I remember wearing them all-elephant leg bell bottoms, tie-dyed T shirts, Earth shoes, shoulder pads, stirrup pants, leg warmers, and last but not least-polyester. And how about those hairstyles? Each one named after and forever immortalized by the celebrity who made it famous. These were the pictures we brought into our small town beauty salons and tried religiously to follow: The Marcia Brady center-part, long and straight; the Farrah Fawcett, the Dorothy Hamill (this was for my senior picture, in which I was in soft focus and staring down at a rose), the horrifying assymetrical (am I the only one who remembers this???), the Linda Evans, and last but by no means least, the Rachel.

Since I went to the University of Washington, I remember a lot of locations used in the book. Anyone interested in a Firefly Lane memory lane tour should try: The Last Exit coffee house (is it even still there?), Kels pub in Pioneer Square, which is still a great time, Starbucks in the Public Market, a ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, Goldies tavern in the U District, Greek row at the University of Washington (I’m sure you can still find a ton of parties happening there on Saturday nights), and the view of Seattle at night from Rockaway Beach.

As a little treat, I’ve also included some extra pages-extra material, I guess you’d say-from Firefly. They are some of the letters Kate and Tully wrote back and forth to each other in the seventies. Click here and see if they don’t take you back in time. Then let me know what your favorite memories of those days are…

Firefly Lane Playlist

Here’s a list of the songs that Kate and Tully listened to in Firefly Lane .

Click here to access the Firefly Lane playlist on iTunes.

• Dancing Queen
• Daydream Believer
• Stairway to Heaven
• Taking Care of Business
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• American Pie
• Don’t Give Up on Us – David Soul
• Thank God I’m a Country Boy – John Denver
• Brick House
• Twistin’ the Night Away
• Louie, Louie
• Love is a Battlefield
• Jessie’s Girl
• Purple Rain – Prince
• You can’t Always Get What You Want – Rolling Stones
• Call Me – Blondie
• Sweet Dreams (are made of this)
• Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
• Here Comes the Bride
• Crazy for You – Madonna
• I’m Every Woman – Whitney Houston
• Hey Little Girl is Your Daddy Home – Springsteen
• Desperado – Eagles
• A Moment Like This – Kelly Clarkson
• Didn’t We Almost Have it All – Whitney Houston
• Papa Don’t Preach – Madonna
• Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
• Linda Ronstadt
• You’ve Got a Friend
• One Sweet Day

Letters from Kate and Tully

Dear Readers:

As a special treat for those of you who loved Firefly Lane , here are the letters Kate and Tully wrote back and forth during their high school years. Enjoy! Kristin

Your last letter cracked me up. I would have called, but I’m in lockdown again. Got caught smoking a doobie in the girl’s bathroom. (Don’t tell your mom-I know you won’t.) This isn’t like that time in the tenth grade. This time I wasn’t even doing it. I was just there. That’s the thing about Catholic girls’ schools-they always expect the worst. When I got home my grandma was PISSED. Anyway, I’m on double restriction which means I can’t even use the phone. It is totally bogus but there’s nothing I can do. So, write lots and give me all the news that’s fit to print. It’ll be good practice for our future careers in T.V. news.

Friends 4 ever Tully ♥

PS: Do you think I should go with Talullah for my professional name or make up something intelligent sounding?

Dear Tully;

At least you’re doing stuff. Snohomish is the boringest place on Earth. NOTHING ever changes here. That’s why everyone still talks about you. My curfew is ten o’clock, even in the summer. I can’t even stay up late enough to watch the Bicentennial celebration. How grody is that? I keep telling my mom she’s making me miss history but she just laughs. Man, next year is going to blow chips. I wish you were here. I can’t wait ’til we get our dorm room together. It’ll rock. We’ll party hardy every night.

Mom’s calling me down for dinner. Tuna Helper. Again. I’d rather eat my own shoe.

Best Friends 4 ever Kate

P.S. Do you think I really have a future career in T.V. news???

Last night I snuck out of the house and met up with some SENIOR boys from O’Dea. We saw Wings at the Kingdome. It was the coolest night ever. I wish you’d been there. I know Paul McCartney is old, but he’s still a stone cold fox. And Ted Frumm asked me out while they played “Band on the Run.” He’s the captain of the football team. What should I do???

Will write back soon, good buddy. 10-4.

Friends 4 ever, Tully ♥

PS: Of course you have a future in news. We’re a team, aren’t we? And you’re lucky your mom watches out for you. Boys can be real jerks. The Bicentennial shit was pretty lame anyway.

Dear Tully:

While you were watching Wings at the Kingdome with the guys from O’Dea, I was helping my sister learn how to show chickens at the fair. (Does that hobby actually require headgear and a runny nose or is she just unlucky???) It made me think about what a nerd I was when I first met you. Remember? The coke bottle glasses and high-water pants. How could you ever see past all that? You’re a genius. And you better go out with that guy. He sounds cool. All you ever say is no to guys. Why is that? I would kill for a date.

Well, gotta boogie. Mom’s working part time at the drugstore and Dad’s always gone lately. You-know-who has to cook dinner. I’ll try to call you this weekend. Catch you on the flip side.

Luv, Best Friends 4 ever, K.

This long distance blows. I really need my best friend to talk to, dammit. My date with Ted was like one of those tornados that hits Nebraska. A DISASTER. And it’s your fault for making me go. (Not really ☺) Nice Mr. Letterman’s jacket said he loved me in about ten seconds. How insanely gross is that? And when does he decide to tell me he loves me? IN THE MIDDLE OF ROCKY. Right when Rocky yells, “Yo, Adrienne!” Ted licks my ear so I TOTALLY missed it. I’m giving up on boys. They are just penises with feet and hands.

BFF, Tully ♥

Dear Tully-

Ted sounds like a super loser, but of course he loves you. You’re the coolest. How could he help himself? Stephen Morrow still has your 8th grade picture up on his locker and Ben Johnston tells everyone you let him feel you up when you came over last summer. That’s what I can’t stand about this damn town. You’ve been gone for years and you’re still the biggest topic of conversation at lunch. Last week I heard Marc Soderburg say he saw you in a television show. What a dork.

Luv, Best friends 4 ever, K

PS: Pat Richmond knocked up Mary Beth Swanson. Loser + idiot = saddest baby on the planet. Didn’t you go out with him once?

Don’t mention Pat Richmond to me again. That guy is a total loser.

1977 is pretty sucky so far. The only good news is the winter play. I got the lead in Once Upon a Mattress. Usually only seniors get the best parts, so it’s extra cool. I’m totally psyched! Maybe you and your family can come over on opening night. I could leave you all tickets at Will Call. It’d be nice ‘cuz Gran doesn’t feel good enough to go out these days.

BFF, T ♥

I’m sorry I had to leave my seat for awhile last night. My new contacts were chewing my eyeballs but I could still see that you were GREAT as the princess. My mom and dad thought so, too. We were really proud of you. I heard the lady next to me say you had real charisma. That’s cool, huh?

XXOO BFF, Kate

Can you come over during spring break this year? Christmas was sooo long ago. Gran says I’m moping around here, but I miss you. The girls at school aren’t the same. I can’t tell them EVERYTHING like I can you. What did you think of my story on Karen Ann Quinlan?

FF, T ♥

You won’t believe this. Trent Gillett asked me-ME-to the junior prom. I can’t believe it. Mom says if I save up she’ll go in for half on a Gunny Sax dress. We might even go to SEATTLE for dinner. Is that cool or what? I WISH YOU WERE HERE!

Luv, FF, Kate

PS: I got the Dorothy Hamill haircut. It looks good. ☺ And I totally dug your bit on the girl in the coma. Mondo sad. It made me cry. My mom liked it, too. She says you’re good at wringing emotion from a story. That’s good, right?

I remember Trent. What a fox! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, but if you do, name it after me. Ha ha. Go to the Mirabeau restaurant for dinner. Super cool. Can’t wait for details! I’ll call Sunday morning. But remember: BE CAREFUL. Don’t let him take you into any dark corners.

XXOO T ♥

PS: A bunch of us went to see Star Wars at the UA 150. What a totally rockin’ movie. If I were ever going to get married-which I’m not-it would be to Harrison Ford.

The junior prom was the best time ever. Trent said I was a total fox and tried to feel me up. It took him like six hours to unhook my bra. If I had boobs, he would have found them.

Luv FF Kate

PS: Is Harrison Ford that old guy from American Graffiti?

Sorry I haven’t written for a while. My grandfather died this weekend. It was mondo sad. Even Cloud came home and shut her trap for a day and wore normal clothes. (I didn’t even know Gran knew how to get a hold of Mom. I guess she’s out of rehab). Anyway, the funeral is Tuesday. Fun city. Wish you were here.

I was gonna tell you about the totally cool photos that I took yesterday, but my mom’s yelling for me again. I think she left her Toni home perm on too long and it fried her brain. When I have kids I’m never gonna tell them what to do.

PS: Saw your mom’s picture on the news. What’s a harp seal?

School is finally over!!! A bunch of us went to the Lake Hills Roller Rink to celebrate. The music was awesome. It was a local rock band with two girls in it! How cool is that??? They sang a song called “Dreamboat Annie” that rocked. Maybe I can take the bus to see you next weekend?

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'Firefly Lane' Is A Regrettably Shapeless Friendship Story

Linda Holmes

Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke play Tully and Kate, two friends who spend decades supporting each other in Firefly Lane . Netflix hide caption

Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke play Tully and Kate, two friends who spend decades supporting each other in Firefly Lane .

As of this writing, as its Netflix adaptation is about to premiere, the 2008 Kristin Hannah novel Firefly Lane sits at #1 in the Amazon Kindle Store category called "Women's Sagas." And indeed, it is written and presented as a women's saga: the friendship of Kate and Tully, played as adults by Sarah Chalke and Katherine Heigl, as observed over several decades, beginning when they're teenagers and continuing into their forties (at least in these ten episodes).

Much of the story, in broad strokes, is familiar: Tully is the rebellious and sparkling one with a past that is difficult in more visible and explicit ways; Kate is the quieter and more cautious one with a past that is difficult in less obvious ways. Tully's life is more focused on her career (as a television talk-show host); Kate's life, although she is a TV producer, is more focused on domesticity (she ultimately has a teenage daughter). There is a man named Johnny who is important to both of them, who winds up being Kate's husband. They are there for each other in times good and bad, in loss and in table-dancing, in sharing their tales of both disastrous boyfriends and promising ones.

There are people who are suspicious of slick marketing and packaging of some of the elements that predominate in this story — female friendships, romantic intricacies, marriage and divorce, pregnancy and motherhood, and who have learned to bump books like this into a firmly unserious subcategory. Thus, this is a "women's saga," while the story of, say, a crime family that operates over generations on the violent and vengeful energy of a bunch of men, with women primarily appearing as sex objects or symbols of the dream of a serene life that is forever out of reach, would simply be called a "saga." Despite the fact that the best available information has indicated for years that women as a group buy and read far more fiction than men in most genres, whatever is about women at home and with friends and children and lovers is "women's fiction," rather than just ... fiction.

Stories like Kate and Tully's are potentially deep and satisfying sources of meaning in real life — not the kind of meaning that comes from moonshot life events most people will never experience, but the kind that flames up from the apparently ordinary. It's regrettable, then, that this high-profile entry that adapts a successful book by a successful writer doesn't make for satisfying television.

Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke are frequently enjoying that feathered hair of the '80s in Firefly Lane . Netflix hide caption

Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke are frequently enjoying that feathered hair of the '80s in Firefly Lane .

The first problem is structural. While the book proceeds decade by decade through the friendship of these two characters, the series scrambles the sections of Tully and Kate's lives so that it's forever hopping between 1970s teenagers (played by Ali Skovbye as Tully and Roan Curtis as Kate), 1980s twentysomethings getting their start, and early-21st-century fortysomethings coping with midlife. And it scrambles the stories not from episode to episode, but from scene to scene.

It's not that this couldn't work; it's just that it doesn't work. At a micro level, there's considerable wit in how the transitions are done, so that a cut from a scene in the '80s to a scene in 2003 will put the characters' earlier and later iterations in conversation with each other. But the series lacks momentum, in part because just as a story starts to become interesting, we jump from that decade to somewhere else. It inevitably takes time for your viewing mind to first remember the details of what's going on in that timeline and then reenter that narrative emotionally. And just as you get situated? Whoosh, buckle up, we're off to a different year.

Showrunner and executive producer Maggie Friedman has said that this change to the book's approach "makes the story richer," but it's hard not to suspect its actual purpose is to make sure the famous actresses who take over in the roles are in the show from the beginning, as opposed to asking audiences to invest in a story about teenagers starring actresses they don't know well, anticipating that Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke will take over around, say, Episode 4. (Heigl and Chalke are even asked to play the women as college students in a few sequences, which is pretty ... odd, given that these actors who played them as high school students are right there.)

But the bigger issue, exacerbated by the timeline choices but not entirely the result of them, is that the series as a whole lacks narrative purpose. It treats these women's lives as a series of disconnected emotional vignettes — someone's wedding, someone's professional disappointment, someone's new romantic entanglement — and many of those scenes are lovely and, in isolation, effective. But over the course of the ten-episode season, none of the emotional stakes that emerge in those moments stick. They lack consequences that reverberate from one episode to another, one decade to another, or one scene to another. "Tully and Kate are always there for each other through thick and thin" is not a story, in and of itself. It's the emotional atmosphere in which the story happens.

It's a shame that the story isn't built better, because the cast is solid and both Heigl and Chalke have good moments, particularly in the chronologically last section where the styling is less distracting. Chalke is a solid comic actress, and Kate's somewhat nervous exploration of her middle-aged sexuality is fun to watch, if not particularly new. Heigl understands Tully, I think, as a character built on a series of disappointments, and I wish the script gave the character more of a chance to build rather than just react, react, and react to individual events.

This is also a series that seems to reveal some challenges with the Netflix model, and with the way it's been applied to this adaptation. A saga has a beginning, middle and end; this "first season" is made up of a little bit of beginning and then a great deal of middle, with ultimately no end at all. If there is no second season, it will be a very odd artifact. Novels can be adapted into series, to be sure, but this isn't the right way to do it.

It's common to dismiss the very subject matter of a project like this as slight or trivial and to blame its failure to satisfy on its fundamental women's-fiction-ness, as if spending all this time with these characters was doomed to be dull. But the problem isn't in the idea or the genre; it's in the execution, and especially the writing. A story that's as full of events as this one (Births! Deaths! Divorces!), perhaps counterintuitively, needs a pretty robust structure, because otherwise, those events become a bunch of scenes pinned to a corkboard, and even if they're compelling, they just kind of ... sit there.

It's harder than it looks, this kind of story. It can be done successfully, but it hasn't been here.

Read the 'Firefly Lane' Book Series in Order Before Watching the New Season 2 Episodes

Kristin Hannah's books will make you see the Netflix show in a totally different way.

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"These first nine [episodes] that are going to drop, you will discover what it is that has really fractured that relationship," Actress Katherine Heigl teased to People about what fans can expect . "It's pretty big, it's pretty juicy."

For this reason alone, fans of the show will want to tune in to see how this fallout will shake itself out. But unlike much the first season, the reason Tully and Kate are feuding differs from the Firefly Lane book series by Kristin Hannah . Despite not following the books to an exact tee, the books will still help provide a bit more context.

Series creator Maggie Friedman alluded to Entertainment Weekly about this back in February 2021, saying that the Netflix series pulls some storylines from the books, but also incorporates several straight-for-TV moments. "One of the things I think that's been fun is that we have kept some big moments from the book and been very true to those, and then there are other things that we've done that are different."

So, if you choose to read the F irefly Lane books in order before watching season 2, take everything with a grain of salt (and then pour yourself a margarita to be just like Tully and Kate). Take a look below:

St. Martin's Griffin Firefly Lane: A Novel

Meet Tully Hart and Kate Mularkey the summer before eighth grade, and then follow them from their twenties all the way to their forties. Throughout their 30-year friendship, they experience true love, loss, career changes and inevitable complications. But a major betrayal tests everything they've ever known and ultimately, puts their love for one another to the test.

St. Martin's Press Fly Away: A Novel

In the second and final book in the series, Tully is grappling with the aftermath of Kate's death. And while she promised Kate that she'd step in to take care of her children, taking on this role becomes a permanent reminder that her best friend is really gone. Just as she's finding her way, Tully gets a phone call from her mom, who abandoned her way back when. This conversation leaves an impact on Tully, forcing her to confront her past head-on.

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Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

• Publication Date: February 5, 2008
• Genres: Fiction
• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• ISBN-10: 0312364083
• ISBN-13: 9780312364083
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Kristin Hannah Reinvented Herself. She Thinks America Can Do the Same.

In “The Four Winds,” the author of “The Nightingale” and “The Great Alone” takes readers back to another era of environmental disaster, economic collapse and fresh starts.

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By Elisabeth Egan

Growing up in California and the Pacific Northwest, Kristin Hannah never wanted to become a novelist. It was a career for dreamers, she thought, kids who took creative writing classes and scribbled stories from the time they were 6.

“I just wasn’t that person,” she said in a video interview from her home outside Seattle. “Until I was in my third year of law school and my mother was dying of breast cancer. Every day I would visit her and complain about my classes. One afternoon, my mother said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to be a writer.’”

This was news to Hannah. The two decided to write a romance novel set in 18th-century Scotland. “That was her choice,” Hannah said. “I would have written horror. But it gave us something to talk about.”

In 1985, the day she wrote the first nine pages — her inaugural foray into fiction — she received a call from her father, telling her she needed to get to the hospital. There, before her mother died, Hannah, then 24, had a chance to whisper, “I started.”

But she put the book on hold and resumed her original plan, practicing law at a Seattle firm — until, she said, “a few years later, I went into labor at 14 weeks and was bedridden until my son was born. I realized that I probably wouldn’t have more children and I wanted to be home for the first few years. So I thought, I’ll try writing a book.”

But not the one she started with her mother. “That was a terrible, terrible book,” Hannah said. “It’s now in a box that says ‘Do Not Publish Even After Death.’”

She published her debut novel, “A Handful of Heaven,” in 1991. It was a historical romance set in Alaska — a place she returned to almost three decades later in “ The Great Alone ,” which sold two million copies in the United States.

Hannah experienced an even bigger breakout hit with “The Nightingale,” her 2015 historical novel, which sold 4.5 million copies worldwide. Her books have now been translated into 43 languages, her name is an anchor tenant on best-seller lists, and you would be hard-pressed to find a book club that has not discussed one of her novels. Of her mother’s long-ago prediction, Hannah said, “I tell you, this woman is somewhere with a martini and a cigarette telling all her friends, ‘I told you so.’”

Hannah, 60, lives with her husband; her son is now grown. Gone are the days when she had to squeeze in bursts of writing around naps and school hours. She works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. most days, writing drafts in longhand on yellow legal pads. “I can write in my backyard, by the fire, on the beach, on an airplane,” Hannah said. “It helps to be disciplined, but I also believe creativity follows discipline.”

Her 24th book, “The Four Winds,” which comes out on Tuesday, seems eerily prescient in 2021, with its Depression-era tale of blighted land, xenophobia, fear of contagion — and determination to join forces and rebuild. Its message is galvanizing and hopeful: We are a nation of scrappy survivors. We’ve been in dire straits before; we will be again. Hold your people close. Her publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is planning an initial printing of 1 million copies.

“I wanted to tell a quintessentially American story,” Hannah said. “The Dust Bowl was the greatest ecological disaster in American history and that, combined with the partisan divide of the Great Depression, really spoke to me.”

The protagonist of “The Four Winds” is Elsa Martinelli, a single mother of two who, in 1935, leaves a parched family farm in Lonesome Tree, Texas, for California. She is unmoved by brochures promising milk and honey in the “Land of Opportunity.” She needs steady work and fresh air for her son, who is recovering from “dust pneumonia,” a then-common ailment on the Great Plains. (Readers who feel inconvenienced by cloth masks may feel differently after spending time with characters who wear gas masks in their homes.)

In the San Joaquin Valley, the Martinellis trade one set of terrible circumstances for another. Work is scarce. Locals are cruelly suspicious of newcomers, who they believe carry disease. Nobody will rent to “Okies,” as migrants were known — regardless of whether they were from Oklahoma — so the family settles into a squalid camp on the banks of an irrigation ditch.

How Elsa claws her way out is the crux of “The Four Winds.” Friendship is a lifeline, as it is for many women in Hannah’s books, including the pair in “ Firefly Lane .” On Wednesday, Netflix begins streaming its television adaptation of that book, starring Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke.

“I deeply value my female friendships. That’s something that has been reinforced in this pandemic,” Hannah said. “So it made sense to me that Elsa finds a mother and a girlfriend. Those relationships give her the power to stand up for herself.”

One of Hannah’s closest friends is her writing partner of more than 30 years — the novelist Megan Chance, whom she met early in her career at a lunch hosted by a local writers’ group.

“We were both in the bathroom at the same time. We traded phone numbers at the sink and decided to read each others’ manuscripts,” Chance said in a phone interview. “It was this instantaneous connection, the most weirdly fated meeting I’ve ever had.”

They started talking on the phone every day, honing their work according to writing advice from authors such as Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham and Robert McKee . “Our process changes every couple of years depending on what we’re writing and what’s going on in our lives,” Hannah said, “but generally I’ll give Megan 150 or 200 pages, and that’s the beginning.”

“I think our critiques would devastate other people,” joked Chance, whose latest novel is “A Splendid Ruin.” “But there’s also this trust. We know each others’ histories. When Kristin calls me and says ‘I’m feeling this way,’ I go, ‘You always feel that way.’ And she’ll go, ‘I do?’ Kristin knows story better than any person I’ve ever known. She has it in her bones.”

In 1993, Hannah had another fortuitous encounter — this time at a hotel bar during a romance writers’ convention, where she met her now-longtime editor, Jennifer Enderlin, who is the president and publisher of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

In a phone interview, Enderlin traced Hannah’s many reinventions throughout her career — from mass-market romance writer to hardcover author to book-club best seller to spinner of historical sagas. “With ‘The Nightingale,’ she went from being considered ‘women’s fiction’ to being considered a literary novelist,” Enderlin said. “She has an instinct for why something worked; she’s analytical and intuitive at the same time.”

As she worked on “The Four Winds,” Hannah was inspired by Dorothea Lange’s photographs , especially “Woman of the High Plains” — “You can see how tired, afraid and heroic she is all at once” — and by the writings of Sanora Babb , an aspiring journalist who documented life in migrant camps for the Farm Security Administration only to have her own novel in progress scooped by “ The Grapes of Wrath .”

“She took copious notes on conversations with residents, what they cared about and what they were having trouble with,” Hannah said before describing how Babb’s boss funneled these observations to John Steinbeck. “Amazing, right?”

She smiled ruefully. “I’m devoted to putting women in the forefront of historical stories. To telling women’s stories.”

“The Four Winds” includes a few lines from Babb’s novel, “Whose Names Are Unknown,” which was finally published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2004: “One thing was left, as clear and perfect as a drop of rain — the desperate need to stand together … They would rise and fall and, in their falling, rise again.”

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Firefly Lane Paperback – December 29, 2020

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From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all―beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship―jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you―and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.

• Book 1 of 2 Firefly Lane
• Print length 512 pages
• Language English
• Publication date December 29, 2020
• Dimensions 5.49 x 1.32 x 8.27 inches
• ISBN-10 1250787971
• ISBN-13 978-1250787972
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“Hannah's latest is a moving and realistic portrait of a complex and enduring friendship.” ― Booklist “Not since Iris Dart's Beaches , twenty years ago, has there been a story of friendship that endures everything, from girlhood dramas to bitter betrayal, to be the touchstone in two women's lives. In Firefly Lane , Kristin Hannah creates the most poignant of reunions and an unforgettable story of loyalty and love” ― Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean “A tearjerker that is sure to please the author's many fans.” ― Library Journal “With perfect pitch, Kristin Hannah describes the tumult and energy of the 70s and 80s, and on a deeper level takes readers into the heart of a friendship between two women. Firefly Lane is masterful at the grand sweep and the fine detail.” ―Elin Hilderbrand, author of Barefoot “This terrific buddy saga about two best girlfriends who survive all sorts of escapades and catastrophes will inevitably provoke comparisons with Iris Dart's 'Beaches,' but the story is all Hannah's own.” ― The Seattle Times “No one writes more insightfully about women's friendships with all of their messy wonder, humor, pain and complexity like Kristin Hannah. She's a marvel.” ― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, author of Natural Born Charmer

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Griffin; Media tie-in edition (December 29, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250787971
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250787972
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.49 x 1.32 x 8.27 inches
• #5,641 in Women's Friendship Fiction
• #10,674 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
• #16,308 in Contemporary Women Fiction

About the author

Kristin hannah.

Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels. Her newest novel, The Women, about the nurses who served in the Vietnam war, will be released on February 6, 2024.

The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstore's bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by the both Today Show and The Book Of the Month club, which named it the best book of 2021.

In 2018, The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads.

In 2015, The Nightingale became an international blockbuster and was Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People's Choice award for best fiction in the same year. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week.

The Nightingale is currently in pre-production at Tri Star. Firefly Lane, her beloved novel about two best friends, was the #1 Netflix series around the world, in the week it came out. The popular tv show stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke.

A former attorney, Kristin lives in the Pacific Northwest.

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