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\nBook Summary:
\nLilac Girls in troduced readers to Caroline Ferriday\, an American philanthropist who hel ped young girls released from Ravensbruck concentration camp. Now\, in Sun flower Sisters\, Kelly tells the story of her ancestor Georgeanna Woolsey\ , a Union nurse who joins the war effort during the Civil War\, and how he r calling leads her to cross paths with Jemma\, a young enslaved girl who is sold off and conscripted into the army\, and Ann-May Wilson\, a souther n plantation mistress whose husband enlists.
\nGeorgeanne "Georgey" Woolsey isn't meant for the world of lavish parties and demure attitudes o f women of her stature. So when the war ignites the nation\, Georgey follo ws her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women a b other on the battlefront. In proving them wrong\, she and her sister Eliza venture from New York to Washington\, D.C.\, to Gettysburg and witness th e unparalleled horrors of slavery as they become involved in the war effor t.
\nIn the South\, Jemma is enslaved on the Peeler Plantation in Ma ryland\, where she lives with her mother and father. Her sister\, Patience \, is enslaved on the plantation next door and both live in fear of LeBaro n\, 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 co mes through\, she sees a chance to finally escape--but only by abandoning the family she loves.
\nAnne-May is left behind to run Peeler Planat ion when her husband joins the Union Army and her cherished brother enlist s with the Confederates. In charge of the household\, she uses the opportu nity to follow her own ambitions and is drawn into a secret Southern netwo rk of spies\, finally exposing herself to the fate she deserves.
\nI nspired by true accounts\, Sunflower Sisters provides a vivid\, detailed l ook at the Civil War experience\, from the barbaric and inhumane plantatio ns\, 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 s tory still so relevant today.
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