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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.
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.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the coverChapter 1
Mary Woolsey
Charleston, South Carolina
1859
No one suspected the blond boy’s cargo as he drove his crude pony cart through the streets of Charleston.
Mother, my younger sister Georgy, and I had come to South Carolina by the invitation of Pastor Cox at the African Free Church for a two-day stay. We’d stepped out the previous morning past the mansion houses and palmetto trees, the atmosphere so gentle and refined, to make our daily calls and leave Mother’s ecru cards on the silver trays.
Mrs. Charles Woolsey, 8 Brevoort Place, New York City.
Certainly nothing forced itself unpleasantly on our attention, but every black face in the street or greeting us so kindly at a front door reminded us of the system of slavery so robust there and strengthened our resolve to continue the fight.
Upon our walk home from Sunday services, the scent of crape myrtle in the air, a boy driving a pony cart drew up beside us dressed in a clean white shirt and homespun trousers. His rear wheel in disrepair, it bumped with every rotation, keeping his rate of speed not much greater than ours.
“We find ourselves a bit lost,” Mother called to the boy. “Can you guide us to the Charleston Hotel?”
“I’m going that way, ma’am. Will point you there.”
I warmed to his southern accent, a good-natured boy, milk-skinned, twelve years old or so, yellow hair shining in the sun. That brought to mind my own towheaded daughters, left back at the hotel with our friend Mrs. Wolcott, who no doubt stood near the door waiting for my return. Though we’d been gone less than two hours I missed them terribly as well.
“Where do you live?” Mother asked the boy.
“Here and there.” He set his face toward the sun. “You? Sound like a Virginian.”
Mother smiled happy when someone recognized her accent from her former home. “Indeed I am. Left there when I was a girl but suppose I still speak with a trace of it. Live in New York City now. We are here as the guests of Pastor Cox at the African church. Do you know him?”
“No, ma’am.”
We walked along, the only sound the thump of the broken wheel.
“It was a lovely celebration of the Eucharist,” Mother said. “Over three hundred celebrants.”
He turned and smiled. “Bet you was the only white folks there.”
“Yes. But we were welcomed quite enthusiastically.”
“Once, my ma had me in church every Sunday. She’s dead now.”
The boy pulled a piece of bread from a tin lunch bucket at his feet, took one bite, turned and slipped the rest under the tarp.
“Do you attend school?” Mother asked.
“No, ma’am. No school’d take the likes of me.”
“I doubt that very much,” Georgy said.
My attention was drawn to the back bed of the cart and the slightest movement beneath the tarp there.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
He pointed to a white building up ahead. “The mart. Go every Sunday. Make my rounds on Saturday, come here the next day, so my stock’s fresh.”
“Rounds where?”
“All over, ma’am. Pa’s regulars. Hardly ever come empty-handed.”
The boy rode toward a white building with high black gates at the entrance and we followed. It was a hulking place, the word mart shining in gilt above the entrance, a crimson flag flapping in the breeze.
The boy pointed at a roof...
Reviews-
January 25, 2021 This vibrant saga explores the historical ancestor of Kelly’s Lost Roses heroine Caroline Ferriday, abolitionist Georgeanna “Georgy” Woolsey. In 1861, Georgy, 28, abandons her privileged New York City debutante’s life to volunteer in a nursing brigade for the Union Army alongside her sister, Eliza. Running parallel to this narrative is the plight of Jemma, a literate enslaved Maryland woman who, after being sold off by sadistic mistress Anne-May Watson, must choose between her family and a fleeting opportunity for freedom. After Jemma escapes her new plantation dressed up as a boy, she is conscripted into the Union Army. When Anne-May, now a Confederate spy, hears the news, she pursues Jemma for help. The strands eventually converge in the novel’s satisfying second half, when Jemma is taken in by Georgy’s family, while Anne-May obsessively searches for her. The vivid, impeccably researched saga briskly sweeps across war-torn battlefields, New York City, and Southern plantations, highlighting the struggles endured by her women characters. This page-turning work is sure to please Kelly’s fans. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners.
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Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
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