but there is also much hope and joy in the courage, fortitude and victories of those courageous and determined to succeed and survive.” -Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star Much of Sunflower Sisters is heartbreaking. “Kelly’s prose flows beautifully across every page, bringing to life the women impacted by the horrific war that tore apart the country and countless families. It’s a read filled with sisterhood, risk, reward, and plenty of fodder for book clubs.” - Entertainment Weekly
Sunflower Sisters took me on a journey that swept me up in its pages and left me pondering deeper truths in the end. “A beautifully written, intricately researched window into the lives of women in a world we can scarcely imagine today. 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. 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. 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. 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.Īnne-May is left behind to run Peeler Plantation when her husband joins the Union army and her cherished brother enlists with the Confederates. 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. In the South, Jemma is enslaved on the Peeler Plantation in Maryland, where she lives with her mother and father. 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. So when war ignites the nation, Georgey follows her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women on the battlefront a bother. Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey isn’t meant for the world of lavish parties and the demure attitudes of women of her stature.
“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 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. Martha Hall Kelly’s million-copy bestseller Lilac Girls introduced readers to Caroline Ferriday.
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