The Last Dance of the Fireflies

Hope Deschanel, a 23-year-old journalist with a congenital heart condition, receives a letter that shatters everything she believed about her past. Her biological father, Howard Olsen, is on death row in Oklahoma for the murder of thirteen-year-old Emily Gordon twenty years earlier. With only days remaining before his execution, Hope leaves Los Angeles determined to meet him and discover the truth. At a train station she crosses paths with Jamie Gordon, Emily's older brother, a former soldier who has spent twenty years carrying the scars of his sister's murder. Jamie is heading to Oklahoma to witness Howard's execution and finally see justice served. Neither Hope nor Jamie knows who the other really is. Forced together by circumstance, they embark on a 1,400-mile road trip in a 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle, following Route 66 as attraction turns into an intense and unexpected love. In Oklahoma, Hope finally meets Howard in prison and confronts the man responsible for destroying Jamie's family. When Jamie discovers that the woman he has fallen in love with is the daughter of his sister's killer, everything collapses. Unable to reconcile his love for Hope with twenty years of grief and hatred, he walks away from her. Four years later, Hope has transformed their journey into a bestselling novel. Jamie finds her again, only to discover that she is gravely ill. Given a second chance at the love they lost, they choose to spend her remaining months together. Hope eventually dies in Jamie's arms. Two years later, Jamie attends the premiere of the film based on Hope's book, carrying with him the memory of Hope, Emily, Howard and the family tragedy that bound all of their lives together. What began as a journey toward revenge ends as a story about forgiveness, redemption and a love powerful enough to survive even loss.