Sunflower Sisters

Set during the American Civil War, this novel weaves together the lives of three women across battlefields, plantations, and parlor rooms.

In 1859, the Woolsey family travels to Charleston, South Carolina, where mother Jane Eliza Woolsey and daughters Mary and Georgy witness a slave auction. An enslaved woman named Alice begs not to be separated from her children. Georgy slips Alice a gold coin and Mrs. Woolsey's calling card bearing the family's address at 8 Brevoort Place in New York City. Alice and her children are sold separately, galvanizing the family's abolitionist resolve.

Two years later, the Civil War begins. Georgeanna "Georgy" Woolsey, 28, applies to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's new nursing training program over her family's objections. She faces a skeptical examining board at New York Hospital and earns the blue ticket, an admission pass confirming her acceptance into the training class. She completes her coursework under Blackwell, who encourages Georgy's ambition to open a nursing school.

On Peeler Plantation in Maryland, 16-year-old Jemma lives under the brutal rule of Anne-May Wilson Watson. The plantation once belonged to Aunt Tandy Rose, who taught Jemma to read and promised to free the enslaved workers, but the manumission letter disappeared when Anne-May inherited the property. Anne-May forbids reading and punishes infractions with whippings. Jemma's parents, Joseph and Sable, hold the family together, while her twin sister, Patience, has been rented out to neighboring Ambrosia Plantation. On a visit there, Jemma encounters the overseer LeBaron Caruthers and his pattyrollers, armed men who hunt enslaved people on behalf of slaveholders, gathered near a sycamore tree.

Anne-May, married to the mild-mannered Fergus Watson, begins an affair with Jubal Smalls, owner of the local mercantile. Jubal gives her a red Moroccan leather book and suggests she record Fergus's wartime letters. Anne-May forces Jemma to copy the letters, which detail troop positions, into the book and delivers it to Jubal, who passes the intelligence to Confederate sympathizers.

Jemma befriends Celeste, one of the newly purchased enslaved people, and teaches her to read using a stolen copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Celeste writes her name in the book along with the Brevoort Place address from the card her mother, Alice, received in Charleston. When LeBaron discovers the book, Anne-May whips Celeste and turns her over to LeBaron, who assaults her and locks her in the smokehouse. Jemma steals LeBaron's key and frees her, but Celeste dies from her injuries.

Georgy's suitor, Dr. Frank Bacon, proposes, but she declines, wanting an equal partnership. She and her sister Eliza travel to Washington with Frederick Law Olmsted's Sanitary Commission, a civilian organization supporting Union soldiers' health, and accept positions aboard hospital ships. Frank hires Nathan, a freedman and former apprentice to a Maryland physician, as his medical assistant.

At Peeler, the enslaved workers resist in secret. When Delly, a one-handed enslaved woman, gives birth, Sally Smith, the cook, uses belladonna to make the infant appear dead, fooling LeBaron. The family stages a fake funeral, and Delly and her husband Charl escape with the baby through the Underground Railroad. When LeBaron attempts to assault Jemma, Joseph confronts him with a knife. That evening, LeBaron's pattyrollers discover hidden weapons and drag Joseph to the sycamore tree, where they hang him as the family watches. Anne-May persuades Fergus to sell Jemma and Sally to a photographer in Hagerstown, Maryland. Sable runs after the wagon, calling to Jemma not to lose hope.

Aboard the hospital ship Daniel Webster No. 1, Georgy treats casualties from the Peninsula Campaign. Eliza's husband, Joe Howland, is gravely wounded, and Frank saves his life in surgery. The female nurses are dismissed by Congress and replaced by men. Anne-May's brother Harry is killed in battle, and Fergus returns home with one leg amputated. Anne-May continues feeding intelligence to Jubal while deflecting Pinkerton detectives.

In Hagerstown, Jemma works disguised as a boy. She is recruited as a replacement drummer by soldiers from the Fourteenth Connecticut and leaves with them for Gettysburg. During Pickett's Charge, she is shot in the shoulder while dragging a wounded comrade to an ambulance.

Georgy and Mother Woolsey rush to Gettysburg after learning Georgy's brother Charley is wounded. They stay to nurse casualties at the Sanitary Commission lodge. When doctors discover the wounded drummer is a girl, Georgy recognizes the Brevoort Place card in Jemma's possession and connects her to Alice from the Charleston auction. A Confederate sniper shoots Frank. When conventional treatment fails, Jemma applies plant remedies. Georgy performs emergency surgery, removing bone fragments while Jemma administers chloroform. Frank is transported to New Haven, and Jemma and Nathan travel to New York.

Jemma settles at Brevoort Place and reconnects with Carter, her childhood sweetheart from Peeler, at the Colored Orphan Asylum. During the Draft Riots, an Irish mob burns the asylum. Carter urges Jemma to flee to Canada, but she stays, determined to rescue her mother and sister.

Georgy, her sister Jane, and Jemma travel to Point Lookout, Maryland, to serve as nurses. On a detour to Ambrosia, they attempt to rescue Patience, but LeBaron intercepts them on the road. Patience sacrifices herself, jumping from the ambulance so Jemma will not be discovered.

Back in New York, Georgy seeks a bank loan for her nursing school but is denied without a male co-signer. Archie Burpee, a wealthy real estate developer, proposes marriage and offers a house for the school. At the Sanitary Fair, Georgy's sister Mary collapses. Georgy suspects typhoid fever and sends urgent messages to Frank, but his companion Bethada Barnett, a nursing assistant, intercepts them. Jemma confronts Bethada, and Frank rushes to Brevoort Place, but Mary has already died. Georgy confides to Jemma that she blames herself for her father's death, since he drowned aboard the steamer Lexington while rushing home for her piano recital. She declines Archie's proposal.

Anne-May, desperate to recover the red book, hunts for Jemma in New York. She infiltrates the Woolsey household under a false name but fails to find the book. She returns with Pinkerton agents bearing fabricated espionage charges, trading Jemma's return for her own cooperation with federal investigators. Detectives handcuff Jemma and return her to Peeler.

At Peeler, Jemma discovers her mother has disappeared and Patience has been sold to LeBaron. She finds Patience bearing a brand on her chest. Patience strikes LeBaron with a maul, but his pattyrollers capture both sisters and drag them to the sycamore tree for hanging. Jubal Smalls presides until Anne-May arrives and shoots him dead. Nathan, his brother Joshua, and soldiers of the Thirty-sixth U.S. Colored Infantry arrive alongside Georgy, Frank, and Anne-May's sister Euphemia. They bear orders to reclaim Jemma as contraband, a wartime designation placing formerly enslaved people under Union protection. The soldiers free both sisters at bayonet point.

Euphemia reveals she has secretly aided the family through the Underground Railroad and tells the sisters their mother is alive. Anne-May is held at Point Lookout. That night, pattyrollers burn Peeler in retaliation. Anne-May finds the red book where Jemma hid it, in a rice barrel, and burns it.

Georgy and Frank marry at Brevoort Place. Mother Woolsey gives Georgy a deathbed letter from Mary revealing she told Frank of Georgy's love and urged him to propose again. Frank's parents gift the couple a town house in New Haven with a floor for Georgy's nursing school.

Jemma and Patience travel to Bethlehem, Connecticut, where they reunite with Sable, Delly, Charl, and the toddler Kofi, all freed through Euphemia's network. Jemma visits Sally Smith's grave and learns Sally was her biological grandmother. Nathan arrives and proposes. Jemma, who has taken the surname Strong, asks for time but walks with him through the gate, finally free.