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.
