But I wanted to see Tully develop as a character in this book too, because I felt like she didn’t have any character development in Firefly Lane. Somewhere between the dining room and the living room, she banged into a side table and almost fell. Best friends Tully and Kate support each other through good times and bad with an unbreakable bond that carries them from their teens to their 40s. In the end, Kate does indeed pass, leaving Tully to take care of Johnny and her family after she’s gone.

Unexpectedly, Cloud, who rebuffed Tully’s every attempt to reconcile, also appears at her daughter’s bedside. From the Newbery Award–winning author of Sarah, Plain and Tall comes a story about one brave girl who saves her family from losing everything. Usually, when I come to the final edit, I am ready to let the characters go into their happy-endings world. Fans of Firefly Lane may want to pick up this book to revisit favorite characters, but just like Firefly Lane, be prepared for heartbreaking tale that requires many tissues.Her father, Johnny, strives to hold the family together, but even with his best efforts, Marah becomes unreachable in her grief. So if you want to read Fly Away on its own, stick around, but there will be spoilers from Firefly Lane. In the hospital clinging to life, Tully faces her past and her pain, visits her dead friend, and decides whether or not life is worth living. I think Kristin Hannah was wrote this book backwards making sure the readers that didn't read the first book knew everything.

There were several places in the first book that eluded to a story line to explain how Cloud could leave her own daughter. And then something momentous happens which causes each one of them to realise what they ve done, and what they have become. Firefly Lane is one of my favorite books and I couldn't wait to get my hands on Fly Away, I mean to hear from Tully and Mara and Cloud again. This makes me think about Marah selling the story and how that wasn’t the first time she had sold someone out. But then Kate is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and, as with the series, Tully drops everything to reconcile with her before her death.Through all the loss and reassessing of life after death, sifting through past mistakes, and facing hard truths, Tully and Kate’s family’s journey is sad but ultimately heart-warming as stalwart Kate continues to tell the story from the other side. 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. So, I think back to my late teen years and I remember the dumb decisions I made, like hanging out with people I didn’t know that well. But chance and circumstance brought them together and through the decades they were devoted to each other.