Laura Lyons

Laura Lyons is one of the dual protagonists of Patti Callahan Henry's The Secret Book of Flora Lea — a mother and aspiring journalist living a hidden life in 1940, occupying a secret apartment within the New York Public Library. Her story alternates with Sadie Donovan's 1993 narrative, gradually revealing the connection between them and the wartime mystery at the novel's heart.

Laura is defined by her resourcefulness and her fierce devotion to her daughter Flora — the child whose imagination creates the fairy tale world that will echo across decades. Henry writes Laura's wartime chapters with period specificity and emotional intensity, capturing the particular anxiety of a mother navigating a world at war while trying to shield her child from its worst implications. Her story provides the historical foundation that gives Sadie's present-day investigation its emotional stakes.