Martha Hall Kelly proved she was a force to be reckoned with when she published her debut novel ("The Lilac Girls") and each subsequent book in my humble opinion, has just gotten better and better. I am a sucker for a good Civil war novel (GWTW anyone?) and this fits the bill wonderfully. I sat down, and did not get up until I finished. Really enjoyed this one and will recommend it to all who love history and good writing.

Thank you to Random House Ballantine Books and Netgalley for an E-ARC Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly.
Ms Kelly is a meticulous researcher and this allows her characters and settings to jump off the page into your heart, as if they are your dearest friends. This novel set during the civil war era does not shy away from the atrocities of war and slavery. Yet it makes the suffering human and connects to the reader’s sympathies The extended family of the Woolsey Sisters and their acquaintances keeps the plot moving in unpredictable paths. The meaning of the Sunflowers is a poignant reveal in this engaging story. I have loved all of Ms Kelly’s novels surrounding the Bellamy family. Sunflower Sisters continues the historic accounts of the same family tree we enjoyed in Lilac Girls and Lost Roses.
#netgalley#SunflowerSisters

Martha Hall Kelly has not disappointed again. The Woosley family is once again brought to life in her latest novel, Sunflower Sisters, which will be released March 30, 2021. Set during the Civil War, this novel takes us on a journey from slave life on a Maryland Plantation, to a nurse’s perspective on battlefield action, and onto New York City where civilians are struggling to deal with the war. The novel is detailed with historical information that helps the reader understand the effect this war had on the United States and why it was being fought. Fans of Lilac Girls and Lost Roses will enjoy immersing themselves with the characters of this story and will praise the Woosley women once again.

I really enjoyed this tightly plotted novel set during the Civil War that entwines the lives of abolitionist sisters in the North, a family of enslaved people on a Southern plantation, the spying plantation owner, and a large cast of supporting characters. Drawing on historical documents including the letters of the sisters, Kelly creates a rich and fascinating tapestry of how different women were involved in the War and how the War affected them. Kelly writes with sensitivity and realism about nursing, and the medical treatment of Civil War combatants; plantation work and its processes; how escaped enslaved people made their escapes and and were assisted along the way to freedom and how that freedom could be reified or snatched away; how social mores and attitudes changed over the course of the War; and how spycraft worked during the period. My only quibble is with the title, which cites a relatively small detail in the novel and makes it seem much lighter than it is.

I want to thank Random House -Ballantine and Netgalley for a chance to read a d review an ARC copy of Sunflower Sisters by author Martha Hall Kelly. She is going back in history before her previously well written novels, Lilac Girls and Lost Roses.
The Civil War comes to life. It is 1863. Three women share the chapter titles. Georgy grows up in an beautiful home in a fashionable neighborhood in New York City. Anne-May inherits a plantation in Maryland. Jemma, a young black slave, is bought at an auction.
How their lives interact is the story. And it is a very good one!
Incidentally, sunflowers were tied around trees and railings as a warning of danger to escaping slaves.
Sunflower Sisters is due to publish 03/30/2021.

Let me begin this review by telling you that my husband told me halfway through my reading this book that it had to be a five star read because I would not stop calling out things like “ANNE-MAY IS SO HORRIBLE!”  And “OH NO JEMMA!”  Or “ANNE-MAY NEEDS HER COMEUPPANCE!”

He was right. I honestly can’t recall the last time I was so invested in a story and its characters.  Martha Hall Kelly has once again delivered a novel of such substance and value that I will count it as one of my all-time best reads – ever.

Oh, it’s painful.  And it’s brutal.  It’s all the things you would expect of a Civil War-era work of fiction, but it’s also necessary and so important.  

I sobbed my way through the last pages – literally the ugly face cry.  This was the book I didn’t know I needed for this time in our history.  The fact that it’s based on real people and real events makes it that much more powerful.  

Sunflower Sisters will be published on March 30, and you are going to want to mark that date on your calendar because this will be an absolute must read for 2021.  I recommend it with five stars.  

My thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for a complimentary advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Sunflower Sisters is the bittersweet final book in the Ferriday family trilogy. I’ve read all three and enjoyed this one as much as the others! It’s historical fiction set in the South and New York City during the Civil War and is told in alternating turns by Georgy, Jemma, and Anne-May. The women are all forces to be reckoned with and this book is an absolutely delightful read from beginning to end. Don’t miss out on the Author’s Note at the end - the women who inspired this book are amazing to say the least.

Thank you to NetGalley, Martha Hall Kelly, and Ballantine Books for the ARC.

This was my first book by Martha Hall Kelly. It’s an amazing story which takes place during the Civil War. Georgeanna Woolsey trained as a nurse follows her passion and works on the battlefront with wounded soldiers. She a strong character which is necessary for her role as the male nurses do not think woman should be near the battlefield. Georgeanna is also strong in her beliefs that slavery needs to be abolished. A second leading character is Jemma a slave on a plantation in Maryland. Through Jemma’s storyline the life of slavery is portrayed. A third character is Anne-May the owner of the plantation where Jemma is a slave.

The author does a wonderful job of portraying the opposing opinions of slavery, a people divided and takes the reader to the battlefields of the Civil War. This story is based on actual people. It’s the story of friendship, life experiences, strong females and how working together can be beneficial overall.

Martha Hall Kelley is a delightful story-teller that really knows how to pull at the heartstrings. Many people, including myself, fell in love with her book Lilac Girls. As a male reader, the floral theme to her novels isn't up my alley, but I'm also not her primary audience. However, this book is a powerful story that is definitely not one to miss.

Sunflower Sisters
Martha Hall Kelly does it again. What a breathtaking reading experience Sunflower Sisters is.

Firstly, I must say I am in awe of the sheer magnitude of research Martha puts into her writing. The historical context is splendid.

Having loved the previous Woolsey/Ferriday family history in Lilac Girls and Lost Roses, Sunflower Sisters takes us towards the beginning of the families legacy. Set in the years surrounding the Civil War, I found Martha’s setting and characters multidimensional and thought provoking.

Having read other reviews, noting their excellent summaries, I don’t think I will summarize, but will simply encouraged fellow readers to pick this up. I absolutely loved the conclusion to Martha’s trilogy, and believe you would too.

Special thanks to Random House-Ballantine and NetGalley for my advanced copy of Sunflower Sisters. Expected publication date March 30, 2021.

I was so excited to learn that Martha Hall Kelly had written another book! The Civil War is not a time period I have a lot of knowledge of so appreciated a chance to learn. The characters and alternating story lines were very engaging and held my interest. I also enjoyed the epilogue and details of the author's research.

A gripping story of slavery and cruelty during the civil war. Women in New York help to free slaves in the south. Based on true facts this is a must read. A look into racism in this country then and now.

This book drops the reader back in history to the time of the Civil War and follows three women of distinctively different backgrounds. Jemma is a slave who works on a plantation alongside her family. Anne-May is a plantation owner who keeps things running while her husband goes off to war. Georgy is from upper society in New York City dedicated to helping with war efforts & trains
and works as a nurse very close to the battlefields.

I appreciated the war told from these three different perspectives and the anxieties and fears that each faced in a very different way. The three women become connected in different ways, and the stories weave together very well. This is a long book, but it did not drag for me at any point, as I was hoping for the war to be over and conflicts to be resolved.

This novel is beautifully written. It tells a different untold version of life during the Civil War and truly allows you to see all perspectives. From the perspective of a nurse to a slave, this novel is truly wonderful in that it shows you a different story compared to those written before. I cannot recommend this novel enough!

I received a free copy from NetGalley. Civil War. White and black. Rich and poor. Female! Taking place in PA and MD. I enjoyed it. Only at the end did I learn it is book three in a series. Defiantly one you can read as a stand alone.

Another true historical fantasy of love and death by Martha Hall Kelly, the incredible author of the Lilac Girls. Wonderfully written and pure entertainment. Get it today

I was so excited to receive an advanced copy of this book. I am a huge fan of Martha Hall Kelly after reading both the Lilac Girls and Lost Roses. The Sunflower Sisters is the final book in the series where we are introduced to the ancestors of Caroline Ferriday from the original Lilac Roses. Like Lilac Roses, this book was humbling and heart wrenching at times as it covers the time period of the Civil War and the fight to end slavery. The story takes place in Maryland, one of the border states, to show how truly divided the country and sometimes even members of the same family were about the war. The story introduces us to the courageous Woolsey women, including Georgeanne "Georgey" Woolsey who gives up her life of ease to serve as a nurse in a predominately a male oriented profession at the time. We learn about her struggles to overcome prejudice and to be allowed to serve. I found her whole family to be absolutely fascinating. Her mother and sister all involved in philanthropic efforts from preparing supplies for soldiers, raising funds for war efforts and helping orphans. They never tired and jumped in however they could be used. Martha Kelley also provides two other perspectives. The stories includes stories from the perspective of a plantation owner, Anna-May, and Jemma, a slave on her plantation. Anna May is an absolutely deplorable character who is entitled, cruel, and serves as a spy for the south. Jemma is a survivor. The stories of what her and family endured will absolutely break your heart. It is still hard to comprehend how anyone is capable of such cruelty to other humans. It is important to note this is a long read and there may be times when you have to put this book down and walk away. But this book is also filled with stories of victory including surprises as you learn about how other characters were working behind the scenes to help slaves escape through the underground railroad. As always, Martha Kelley's books are so well researched with diverse characters. They are important reads and ones that will lend themselves to a lot of rich discussion. Thank you to #netgalley and Random House / for the advanced copy.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
What a great story this one is.

If you are fortunate enough to have read Martha Kelley’s previous books you will be thrilled with this one. She does not disappoint in the quality of her story telling.

Set in the time of the Civil War this story straddles both sides. It is the story of three different women from three different points of view. One is Jemma, a young slave girl living the Maryland. The plantation owners buy and sell at their own whim. When the kind owner dies Jemma is not freed as she had been promised. She then belongs to Ann May who mistreats her on a regular basis and does not protect Jemma’s other family members. Jemma is able to escape and join the Northern army in the nursing corps. The third character is a very strong young woman from a wealthy New York family. Georgy wants to be a nurse when all the nurses are men. She dreams of establishing a school for female nurses. She joins the Army and serves at Gettysburg during the worst of the days. Later she and Jemma are on a hospital ship near Maryland.

The reader steps into history with both sides equally described and you learn what life was like on each side. You learn about the underground railroad, life of soldiers and medics on the battle field, and what the social groups in the North were doing to aid their soldiers. This was a long book but it really held my interest and I highly recommend it to people who love history, strong women, and great stories.

I loved the fact that at the end of the book the author talks about her research and how she developed the story based on actual letters from family members during the war. It really tied up the ending in a very special way.

Sunflower Sisters is the 3rd book in Martha Hall's trilogy about the Ferriday family. In this book, Kelly takes us back to Civil War era and focuses on Caroline Ferriday's ancestor, Georgey Woolsey. In a very similar format and with the same basic character templates to Lilac Girls, Kelly focuses on the lives of three women.

The American helper to the cause is Georgey who joins forces with the Union army as a nurse. She travels to various areas of the war with her sisters and learns many nursing techniques to aide fallen soldiers and tries to help as many slaves as she can along the way. When she meets Jemma, her and the whole Woolsey family are determined to help her cause.

The prisoner is Jemma who is a young enslaved girl living on a tobacco plantation. Jemma and her family are very badly abused by Anne-May and escape is always on their minds. Jemma had been trained to read and write by her former master, and Anne-May uses this to her advantage to pass along Union secrets to Confederate spies. This puts Jemma in a very precarious position, and this knowledge forces Anne-May to keep an even closer watch on her.

Finally, the villain on the other side is Anne-May, the master of the tobacco plantation. Anne-May is honestly a terrible person. She is the epitome of an evil slave owner and has absolutely zero compassion. I had trouble finding any positive qualities to her. She whipped the slaves, mistreated her husband and sister, and was extremely selfish all around.

This template works for Kelly and allows the reader to hear multiple sides of the same story. Their lives intertwine allowing the reader to become engrossed in the story. The story captures the emotions heartache, loss, pain, sympathy, hate, and fear. It is an extraordinarily sad story and is quite long. There were many areas where I had to put the book down and regroup my emotions. To me, when you can feel the emotions of the characters so personally, that means the book is spectacularly written. If you enjoyed Lilac Girls and Lost Roses you will love this book!

spoiler alert
There was a lot I liked about this book. First of all, the plot was very engrossing, and I had trouble putting it down. (I mean towards the end of the book I spent one night reading until 3 a.m.)

I also liked the fact that it enlightened me on some not-so-well known facts about slavery and the Civil War. I was not aware that there was a common practice of selling babies born to slaves. (I had always assumed that the "owner" would prefer to see the enslaved mother raise the child so that he/she would end up getting another slave with minimum investment.) I was also previously unaware of the situation in Maryland, which I found fascinating - a Union state, but with many slave owners, whose sympathies were with the South. I also knew something about anti-draft riots by (largely) the Irish in New York, but I didn't realize how widespread and how devastating the riots were.

All that having been said - I did have some problems with the novel. First of all, it was extremely painful to read - well, you'd expect that in a novel about slavery, but the problem is that I felt the book as a whole had the feel of a young adult novel. I could see it being read by girls anywhere from aged 12 and up. Maybe because there were parts that reminded me of Little Women. Maybe the romance element. But the level of cruelty might be too much for a young reader.

I also didn’t like the fact that the characters tended to be portrayed as either angels or devils. I especially found the depiction of Anne-May to be over the top evil. She’s a cross between Machiavelli, Scarlett O’Hara and Simon Legree. Cruel, selfish, manipulative – wasn’t that enough? She is also made to be a spy, and promiscuous to boot. (And the bit about the petticoat she is gifted I’m not sure would be appropriate for the younger readers.) It would be more interesting to have a villain who is not comic-book character evil. This novel is not a comic book, and in a way, I think it would have been more enlightening to show the reader that slavery was evil even in cases where the “owner” was not a totally evil character in every way. (and that business with the hair brush for a Christmas gift was really over the top. It was probably common enough to give slaves a genuine Christmas gift – but this was done so that the owner could feel that he/she was a “good Christian” – and of course slaves probably felt the irony that any gift he/she was given was from money that his/her labour had generated.)

Another “devil” is one of the doctors. Now I realize the writer wants readers to know how unappreciated and disrespected nurses were at that time – and while it may be true that it’s quite common, even today, for a nurse to spot something that a doctor overlooks. That having been said, having a doctor perform an unnecessary amputation of a healthy leg, ignoring the nurse’s input seems to me a gross exaggeration. Amputations are and were performed only when deemed necessary to save a life. What motive did the “devil” doctor have to perform an unnecessary amputation? Sadism? Just to make a point of ignoring the nurse?
Why make the “other” woman in the triangle so ridiculous. How could a man of any intelligence be attracted to her? It also makes the final outcome more obvious to the reader.

There were a few points in the plot that troubled me. I hardly think that any enslaved person would have been reckless enough to threaten an overseer with a knive. In the context of slavery, that was suicidal. A sad truth about slavery is that enslaved men were unable to do anything to protect their wives and daughters from sexual abuse. Nor do I think an enslaved woman would have been reckless enough to take a book from her “master” and write her name (or the name of another slave) in it. Enslaved people lived under a reign of terror and knew what lines not to overstep in order to survive.

Toward the end, the attempted murder of LeBaron by Patience also didn’t strike me true. She didn’t hit him when he was shooting at Jemma, but after he had stopped shooting at her. And then Jemma separates from Patience and goes back to Anne-May for… earrings? And hoping to use the hidden book to get Anne-May to help her? Anne-May the villain? Wouldn’t Patience and Jemma rather have tried to hide somewhere, and maybe make their way to where the Union soldiers were?

Two more points. It would have been nice to learn a bit more about the battle of Gettysburg. And it would have been interesting to read more about how the feelings of the various protagonists toward the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves but only in the rebel states, and not in the union states.