Sunflower Sisters Sunflower Sisters
Woolsey-Ferriday

Sunflower Sisters

A Novel

    • 4.5 • 558 Ratings
    • $11.99
    • $11.99

Publisher Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Martha Hall Kelly’s million-copy bestseller Lilac Girls introduced readers to Caroline Ferriday. Now, in Sunflower Sisters, Kelly tells the story of Ferriday’s ancestor Georgeanna Woolsey, a Union nurse during the Civil War whose calling leads her to cross paths with Jemma, a young enslaved girl who is sold off and conscripted into the army, and Anne-May Wilson, a Southern plantation mistress whose husband enlists.

“An exquisite tapestry of women determined to defy the molds the world has for them.”—Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours

Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey isn’t meant for the world of lavish parties and the demure attitudes of women of her stature. So when war ignites the nation, Georgey follows her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women on the battlefront a bother. In proving them wrong, she and her sister Eliza venture from New York to Washington, D.C., to Gettysburg and witness the unparalleled horrors of slavery as they become involved in the war effort.

In the South, Jemma is enslaved on the Peeler Plantation in Maryland, where she lives with her mother and father. Her sister, Patience, is enslaved on the plantation next door, and both live in fear of LeBaron, an abusive overseer who tracks their every move. When Jemma is sold by the cruel plantation mistress Anne-May at the same time the Union army comes through, she sees a chance to finally escape—but only by abandoning the family she loves.

Anne-May is left behind to run Peeler Plantation when her husband joins the Union army and her cherished brother enlists with the Confederates. In charge of the household, she uses the opportunity to follow her own ambitions and is drawn into a secret Southern network of spies, finally exposing herself to the fate she deserves.

Inspired by true accounts, Sunflower Sisters provides a vivid, detailed look at the Civil War experience, from the barbaric and inhumane plantations, to a war-torn New York City, to the horrors of the battlefield. It’s a sweeping story of women caught in a country on the brink of collapse, in a society grappling with nationalism and unthinkable racial cruelty, a story still so relevant today.

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2021
March 30
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
528
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
7.8
MB

Customer Reviews

ShannKL ,

Stunning Historical Fiction

Sunflower Sisters is a beautifully written story of three women - a slave owner, a slave and an abolitionist nurse. This book concludes the Lilac Girls series and does not need to be read in order to understand and enjoy. So much of this story is built around actual facts from the time period and war which makes it incredibly engrossing for the reader.

Jemma, a teenage slave who works a plantation in Maryland suffer cruelly at the hands of the owner, Anne-May. All Jemma craves is freedom for herself and her family.

After being sold and recruited into the war, Jemma crosses paths with Georgy, a war nurse in Gettysburg. She soon finds herself a guest in the Woolsey family home in NYC and in the care of Georgy.

What transpires in the pages is a story of greed, compassion and lasting love in times of extreme peril during the Civil War. This book is filled with wrenching details of slavery, the war and challenges women faced to be seen as equal in knowledge to the male counterparts in nursing.

Thank you PRHA for the courtesy copy for an honest review.

Sdrll101 ,

Great read!

What a wonderful story! Loved it!

settylover ,

Amazing read!

The third book of Martha Hall Kelly’s about the Woolsey family, Sunflower Sisters is truly a masterpiece. I feel that Kelly’s storytelling ability only improved from great to incredible from the first two novels to the third. In reading each book in the series (which can each be read individually), I found myself most excited for the Author’s Note chapters, so that I could learn exactly which elements of the story were drawn from real events and people in history and which parts were fiction. I am always left awe-struck at how many aspects are from real events, down to the smallest details. I love hearing about Kelly’s extensive research process which usually includes traveling to distant places in order to fully experience the places which would become the settings of the novels. I truly fell in love with the characters in Sunflower Sisters; I feel inspired by them. And I was captivated once again by a novel which reads like a thrilling story while being heavily based on truth. I also learned so much about US history. Sunflower Sisters is an amazing read which I recommend to anyone.

More Books Like This

The Bowl with Gold Seams The Bowl with Gold Seams
2016
My Name Is Resolute My Name Is Resolute
2014
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
2019
Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest
2009
The Brideship Wife The Brideship Wife
2020
Ruby & Roland Ruby & Roland
2019

More Books by Martha Hall Kelly

Lilac Girls Lilac Girls
2016
Lost Roses Lost Roses
2019
The Golden Doves The Golden Doves
2023
Las mujeres de la casa de las lilas Las mujeres de la casa de las lilas
2018
Las rosas olvidadas Las rosas olvidadas
2021
Mulheres sem nome Mulheres sem nome
2017

Customers Also Bought

The Forest of Vanishing Stars The Forest of Vanishing Stars
2021
The Room on Rue Amelie The Room on Rue Amelie
2018
The Woman with the Blue Star The Woman with the Blue Star
2021
Eternal Eternal
2021
The Nature of Fragile Things The Nature of Fragile Things
2021
The Book of Lost Friends The Book of Lost Friends
2020

Other Books in This Series

Lilac Girls Lilac Girls
2016
Lost Roses Lost Roses
2019