Sunflower Sisters
- Authors: Martha Hall Kelly
- Series: Book 3 in the Caroline Ferriday series
- Genres: Historical
- Rank:Top 1000 in Best Family Life Fiction Books on Amazon
- Rating: 4.5 based on 6,372 reviews
- Release Date: March 30, 2021
- Print length: 528 pages (Hardcover)
About the book
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.
Georgeanna ‘Georgey’ Woolsey is not suited for the world of extravagant parties and the reserved behavior expected of women of her status. When war breaks out, Georgey pursues her passion for nursing at a time when female doctors were not taken seriously on the battlefield. Along with her sister Eliza, they travel from New York to Washington, D.C., to Gettysburg, witnessing the atrocities of slavery and getting involved in the war effort.
Meanwhile, in the South, Jemma is a slave on the Peeler Plantation in Maryland, living with her parents under the watchful eye of the abusive overseer, LeBaron. Sold by the cruel plantation mistress Anne-May at the same time the Union army arrives, Jemma sees an opportunity to escape but at the cost of leaving her family behind.
As Anne-May takes charge of Peeler Plantation in her husband’s absence, she seizes the chance to pursue her own ambitions and becomes entangled in a network of Southern spies, ultimately facing the consequences of her actions.
Sunflower Sisters draws inspiration from true stories of the Civil War, offering a detailed look at the brutal realities of plantations, the chaos of New York City during the war, and the horrors of the battlefield. It portrays the struggles of women in a nation teetering on the edge, grappling with issues of nationalism and racial injustice - a narrative that remains pertinent in today’s world.
About the author
