USA Today Bestselling author Claudia Burgoa brings you an emotional and inspirational story that will tug on your heartstrings. The first time I met Oliver Tanner he was five years old. I was four. That day he was entrusted to my keep.He was as large and loud as a church mouse. That day I taught him how fireflies were magic with the persistence of a person. That’s what I loved about them. No … person.
That’s what I loved about them.
No matter how far they strayed,
they remembered where they came from and who their family was.
After high school, he joined the army and left Knox Ridge.
Years later, the town had changed.
My dreams were shattered.
We had nothing left.
I had forgotten all about the magic of the fireflies.
Until he came back to town.
Everything about him was comforting.
He brought some light to my darkness,
But I knew the light could only last for so long.
Fireflies only stay for the summer.
He had outgrown our small town.
It was time for me to stop chasing fireflies.
Don’t miss out on this stunning, second-chance friends to lovers romance.
This full-length novel was originally published in the Cards of Love collection as a novella. It has been revised with additional scenes.
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What an incredible second chance friends to lovers romance that left my heart swooning This read did an incredible job of capturing all my emotions and building them (breaking them ) and putting me right back together. The characters were so easy to attach to and I am a little sad the read is over now
Heartbreaking, touching, moving – fantastic!
After finishing this book I’m wondering if there ever would be a book written by Claudia Burgoa that won’t move me to the core. Whether the emotions are one of anger, frustration, sadness, heartbreak, angst, fun, love or happiness I crave reading her stories anytime she releases new one. They move me, they help me see there’s love, sweetness, friendship in this world and that no matter what, we can have happily ever after even after many many years of lost hope, yearning and waiting patiently for the best to come. This story is beautifully written and grabbed me from the very beginning. It was such a great pleasure to watch Kit Kat and Ollie growing up and become adults, with developing feelings for each other somewhere in the way. Chemistry between them was so strong I was able to feel it on the other side of the pages. I cried some ugly tears and close to the end smiled like crazy. It was one of this bitter-sweet stories that have heartbreak written all over them but then give your racing heart peace and heart-warming feeling.
I LOVED Chasing Fireflies by Claudia Burgoa!!! Such a beautiful, touching story of love and friendship. The writing was incredible as always. Claudia never fails to deliver. When I read this as a novella then published as Knights of Wands Oliver and Kaitlyn won my heart instantly!!! I ADORED EVERY SINGLE MOMENT!! And in Chasing Fireflies we get a bit more of the story, yes please!! .
Even though I had read the novella I savored every single word of Chasing Fireflies, had my heart broke again, and felt all the angst, and love and emotions the second time around. Absolutely PERFECTION!!! Another 5 star read from Ms Burgoa!
**3.5 Stars**
Chasing Fireflies is a sweet contemporary book about loving and living in a small town. It contains second chance romance, friends to lovers, and the strength and strong connection of family, friends, and your community.
The Blythe and Tanner families built the community and have continued to live there for many years. Ollie and his mom, Josey, return to their roots and move into their family home. The Blythes, next door, are the honorary ‘couple’ of the town and run a fairly successful restaurant. The Blythes have taken in both Josey and Ollie as a Blythe. Josey works in their restaurant and Ollie spends most of his spare time with them in their home.
Oliver (Ollie) Tanner and Kaitlynn (Kit Kat) Blythe are the primary characters in this story and have known each other since they were five and four years-old respectively. They are best friends and are thoroughly connected at the hip all through high school. As with most things in life, their relationship goes through ups, downs, and transitions.
Chasing Fireflies is told in dual POV, which makes it nice, to be able to get into both of their heads and figure out what they’re saying and feeling. Now, I enjoyed the story overall, there are some things that aren’t sitting well with me.
Cons:
1) The characters themselves. Kaitlynn was great, when she was younger, but after the time apart, she had turned into a limp dishrag. I like strong and feisty women.
2) Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, Ollie. I, so, wanted to like him, but he did things and acted certain ways, that made it hard for me to fall over the edge into full on Likesville with him. I can’t say much more without questionable spoilers, but if you say you love someone, I would hope someone wouldn’t do that to me.
3) Kaitlynn’s sister. I don’t know if much more needs to said about her. You just have to read Chasing Fireflies to hear about her.
Despite this, I truly was hoping for a HEA and enjoyed the epilogue at the end.
Chasing Fireflies is an extended version of the previously released story Knight of Wands. Oliver and Kaitlynn were best friends growing up until Oliver started dated Kaitlynn’s sister Kelsey. Oliver and Kaitlyn wrote letters to each other while he was deployed. Twelve years later, Oliver is back in Knox Ridge trying to find himself. Kaitlynn had big dreams of becoming famous chef with her own show, but life happens. I love getting more of their background and story. Chasing Fireflies is another amazing story about second chances in a small town that’s a must read.
I really enjoyed this story and fell in love with the characters a lot. This one is a second chance love story that started when they were kids. They had become best friends and everything to each other. Now years later he’s back and determined to prove that she’s always been the one for him and he’s back for good.
What a beautiful friends to lovers story. Oliver and Kaitlynn were friends since he moved to town at 5 years old and she was 4. Her family immediately adopted him and his mother as family members. You get to see from the time they met, elementary, junior high and high school years. It’s beautiful to see how their friendship developed and the attraction towards each other. Then high school happened and things kind of started changing between them. But they were still friends. He went to the military and she to UCLA and they exchanged throughout the years the most amazing letters. But then Kaitlynn’s world is shaken and things change for her. Her sister is the worst sister I’ve ever read about. Oliver returns and things are shaky between them but slowly he wears her down and does the most generous things for her. Their HEA is adorable and I loved loved their epilogue. Her best friend Paige was a beautiful soul too.
I LOVED this book! Kit Kat and Ollie worked their way into my heart from the beginning. I loved the way Claudia wrote this! Getting their story from when the first met when they were 4 and 5 and then all their moments growing up as best friends until they parted ways. There is so much longing and heartbreak but at the same time so much love. I felt every emotion (even now, I still feel it all). Once they were both back in Knox Ridge, can they get over their fears of losing their friendship and become more? When they both feel like they’re home with the other, there’s probably no point in fighting it.
Chasing Fireflies {Cards of Love: Knight of Wands} by Claudia Burgoa was a story that I read as part of the Cards of Love series. It is a beautifully written story of love that has slowly dwindling after years of correspondence between the two friends, life has just gotten in the way of their friendship until Oliver returns. After returning home retiring from the service Oliver is reunited with his Kit Kat. Realizing she isn’t a child anymore, his best friend is suffering and he will do all he can to help her.
Discovering his missing letters from Kat he finds there was another side to his old friend, and he now finds his missing heart. A very sweet and beautiful book that you are sure to love.
This was one phenomenal book. I laughed. I cried. I could not put this one down. Claudia has such a way with words that it brings many emotions out of me. Without giving anything away from this book I dont really know what to say except I loved this book and will definitely be reading again. I hope that there will be more from this couple and the other characters.
Something to thing about when reading this book. Do long distance relationships or friendships work? We all have that one friend that no matter what distance has put between us we try to maintain it in some way. That’s what Ollie and Kit Kat tried to do but was it to much time? So check out this book and see for yourself if it is as great as I think.
This was a fantastic story! It starts out with Kaitlynn and Oliver’s childhood. They have been friends for as long as they can remember. When they grow up and Oliver decides to join the military they keep in touch throughout the years with letters, but overtime they start to drift apart. Once Oliver comes back to Knox Ridge he is lost and doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. What he didn’t expect was to find Kaitlynn again after so many years and will they get to start over or has there been too much time that has passed?
This was a great friends to lovers story. I love these characters and I was happy to get this extended version and more background to Kaitlynn and Oliver. This is a sweet read that will have you hooked from the beginning. I would highly recommend it!
In Chasing Fireflies, Claudia Burgoa speaks with a clear and passionate voice, delivering a book of first love, loss, devastation and redemption. Kaitlynn Blythe and Oliver Tanner met as 4 and 5 year old children when Ollie and his mother moved into the house next door. They formed an immediate friendship, first over chasing fireflies and, as time went on, by being the most important person in each other’s life. When it all goes so dramatically wrong, it is nothing short of agonizing. Afraid of his overwhelming feelings for Kit Kat, Ollie makes the most painful mistake by dating a horribly mean girl. Kaitlynn thinks she has lost him and the finality of his disappearance from her life becomes more permanent when he enlists in the Army. She promises to write to him for as long as he’s gone, and he says that he’ll do the same. Through a series of mishaps. they lose touch and, only after 12 years, do they see one another again. Ollie comes home to Knox Ridge, GA, but doesn’t intend to stay. Once he and Kit Kat see each other once more, there’s so much mistrust and miscommunication that it doesn’t seem they will ever be able to talk things out to get back together. With the discovery of some unread letters, the reality of their ever-present feelings comes to light. Telling much of their history through the letters is brilliant. The emotions they elicit send us on an incredible journey from heartache to joy! This is a passionate story with a poignant ending and a most heartwarming epilogue!
I liked this story back when it was just a novella and enjoyed it even more as a full length novel. Oliver and Kaitlynn are sweet, but stubborn. They are cute as little kids, interesting as pre-teens, stubborn and prone to mistakes as teens/young adults, and hurt and lost as adults. They need to get over past mistakes and misunderstandings. They both love each other and have forever, but they are stubborn and not listening to what the other is saying and not saying.
I like the story and the characters. I like how there isn’t too much angst and that you know that love has to win. Cute story with a sweet underlying message.
I received an ARC of this book. This is my honest opinion and review.
This small town friends to lovers romance is so sweet! Actually, it gives the reader a range of emotions! And have your tissues ready, you are going to need them!
Oliver Tanner and Kaitlynn Blythe met as children and became inseparable friends. Over the years, they have experienced a lot together and their friendship has only increased.
After high school, Oliver joined the army and left Knox Ridge.
Kaitlynn went to college and was chasing after her dreams, but when an unexpected event shakes everything, her dreams end up in the background for her to follow the legacy of others.
After 12 years away, when Oliver retires, he immediately returns to Knox Ridge and upon reuniting with Kaitlynn, some previously unexplored feelings arise with full force.
As Oliver tries to help Kaitlynn become his dear Kit-Kat again, she needs to relearn how to trust people and live her life again. At the same time, they have to deal with the feelings that arise between them.
This is a beautiful and exciting story with wonderful characters. I highly recommend the reading.
~~~~~~~~~5 Magical Firefly Stars~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I loved Ollie and Kit Kat when this was a novella: Cards of Love – Knight of Wands and Chasing Fireflies solidified and rekindled my love for them.
“Kaitlyn was my firefly in a dark abyss, bathing everything she touched with her warmth. I could have spent forever looking at her.”
These two are the epitome of childhood best friends to lovers but before they move on to become more than just friends there’s so much more involved in the in between. I’m so glad we got to read about their beginning. In KOW it starts when Oliver returns but the backstory of their childhood and some of the hurt and heartache they both endured really brought their story full circle.
“He was quiet fall afternon, exciting days at the beach, late-night movie marathons, and the wide-open sky. He was everything that made Knox Ridge special, wrapped into one person.”
In KOW we got their ending and wow what an ending but now we have their beginning and what led to their beautiful ending. Their beginning really needed to be told and Ms. Burgoa gave us a wonderfully written tale of two friends destined to be together despite some roadblocks along the way.
I fell in love with this book. Chasing Fireflies was a wonderfully emotional story of growing up, friendship, family loss and love. Ollie and Kit Kat met when he was 5 and she was 4. They spent their days exploring and Kat introduced him to the magic of Fireflies at night. They along with their friend Paige grew up in small town Knox Ridge. Ollie and his widowed Mom, and Kat, her sister Kelsey and her Mom and Dad, who owned Blythes, their family owned restaurant. The Blythes were helpers, and the took Ollie and his mom under their wings to help the struggling mom and son out. The families became close and Ollie and kat became best friends. This is the story of the evolution of Ollie and Kat’s friendship, of how it evolved, matured and changed over the years, Make sure you don’t miss the this wonderful story of friendship, family, loss and love, and learn the magic of Chasing Fireflies
A sweet love story about two best friends finally coming together. Oliver and Kaitlyn are best friends, until Oliver starts dating Kaitlyns sister. They break up, and he heads enlists in the Army. Over the years, Kaitlyn and Oliver write each other. When Oliver gets out, the first place he goes is back home. The two of them have changed a lot over the years, and sometimes you just need a little push in the right direction. This book has love, heartache, and lots more thrown in.
Loved Ollie and Kit Kat
This was a very so-so story for me. I didn’t really feel the connection between the characters and I felt their getting together was one of those, it’s a last chance effort.. to be honest i wish that Kaitlyn had followed through on her decision near the end of the book regarding the restaurant, and got away for a while find who she was and then come back.
While this is a feel good book, the actions of \Ollie didn’t jive with me and I think his decision to date Kelsey was a shocking one, because really were these sisters the only females in town? I’m very surprised the respective parents didn’t have a bloody word with both of them, after from the two POV they seem to be so on the ball with their kids.
Told in both the past and present over the course of the book, we see the relationship build and change over the years as they grow up. We also see when Ollie decides well it’s time to settle down and his one time best friend who is stuck running her deceased parents restaurant ( found it hard to believe that with such a close community, the struggles she was going through until a call from Ollie at the end changed them) and a sister who only comes back to take and take.
The romance is sort of in the background, but it’s there.