Between Sisters

Kristin Hannah is an American novelist. She grew up in California and later moved to Washington State, where she earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington. She pursued a law degree from the University of Puget Sound. Hannah worked as a lawyer in Washington until she became a full-time writer. Hannah has credited her legal education with providing the foundation for her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. Hannah reflects: 

I was good at writing briefs and looking at the law in a creative way, like how to apply precedent to the facts and learning to tell a narrative. That really led into being a writer, because in a lot of ways, a writer pushes a narrative. I’m selling an idea. I’m making you believe what it is I have to say, and I learned all of that through legal writing (Benmar, Claudine. “A Knack for Narrative.” Seattle University School of Law, 21 Mar. 2022).

Hannah has published over 20 novels. She first tried her hand at novel writing as a collaborative project with her mother. While this title was never published, it inspired Hannah’s 30-year career in the literary field. Her published titles include A Handful of Heaven (1991), The Enchantment (1992), Once in Every Life (1992), If You Believe (1993), When Lightning Strikes (1994), Waiting for the Moon (1995), Home Again (1996), On Mystic Lake (1999), Angel Falls (2000), Summer Island (2001), Distant Shores (2002), Between Sisters (2003), The Things We Do for Love (2004), Comfort and Joy (2005), Magic Hour (2006), Firefly Lane (2008), True Colors (2009), Winter Garden (2010), Night Road (2011), Home Front (2012), Fly Away (2013), The Nightingale (2015), The Great Alone (2018), The Four Winds (2021), and most recently, The Women (2024).

Hannah is best known for The Nightingale. Upon its publication, The Nightingale was an international bestseller. It was later “named Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015,” “won the coveted People’s Choice award for best fiction in the same year,” was chosen as “a selection of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club in 2023,” and was named “a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, The Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week” (Hannah, Kristin. “Bio.” Kristin Hannah). The title has sold over four million copies and has been translated into 45 languages. In 2023, The Nightingale was adapted into a feature-length film by TriStar, and stars Dakota and Elle Fanning.

Hannah’s novels The Great Alone and Firefly Lane have also been optioned for film and television adaptations. When Firefly Lane first aired on Netflix, it was one of the platform’s top series worldwide. It stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke.

While all of Hannah’s titles trace distinct storylines, characters, and/or temporal eras, Hannah’s work always highlights women’s stories. On her website, Hannah reveals that she’s not normally a risk taker but has always been proud of herself for “daring to believe [she] could write a novel.” This is the primary reason that she “love[s] stories of women” (Hannah, Kristin. “In Her Own Words.” Kristin Hannah). Her most recent novel, The Women, underscores the precedent Hannah sets on representing stories of women’s courage in literature. The novel is set during the Vietnam War and revolves around a nurse named Frances “Frankie” McGrath. Not unlike The Nightingale, The Women tells the story of a young woman’s involvement in a global conflict. Upon its publication, The Women was named an instant New York Times bestseller. Warner Bros. bought the rights to the story in 2024.

Hannah’s work is in conversation with other contemporary women’s fiction. Parallel titles include Kristin Harmel’s The Book of Lost Names (2020), Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours (2017), and Danielle Steel’s Only the Brave (2024).