

This is the 3rd book in The Lilac Girls series. Inspired by true accounts, Sunflower Sisters provides a vivid look at the Civil War experience of three characters. Georgeanna Woolsey is an ancestor of Caroline Ferriday from Lilac Girls. She is a Union nurse 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. I have read the other two books (Lilac Girls and Lost Roses) but Sunflower Sisters is my favorite. We get a first-hand look at slavery through Jemma and all of its social injustice. Through Anne-May we get a peek of a plantation owner and how they treated the slaves. We follow the characters to a war-torn New York City and to the horrors of the battlefield at Gettysburg. I found the book to be well-written and well-researched. This is the last book in the trilogy but I look forward to seeing what Kelly writes next. If you love history then you should read this series.