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, DC, 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, number one New York Times best-selling 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 best seller Lilac Girls introduced listeners to Caroline Ferriday.

Review of sunflower sisters