Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly is a compelling WWII novel that intertwines the lives of three women. Readers experience the harrowing reality of Ravensbruck and the fight for justice.
Product Information: For three women living through World War II, the threat of war poses very separate issues - that is, until their lives become intertwined in the most tragic of circumstances.
New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate. But the privileged life to which she is accustomed is turned upside down when her lover suddenly and suspiciously disappears.
An ocean away in Germany, indoctrinated young Herta Oberheuser is desperate to begin working as a doctor. She replies to an advert for a government medical position, yet only upon arrival does she discover the true extent of her horrifying new role.
As the war advances, Polish teenager Kasia Kuzmerick is drawn deeper into the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbours, one false move can have dire consequences.
Then the unthinkable happens: Kasia is sent to Ravensbruck, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women where Herta now works, and her life is transformed into a desperate attempt to survive.
As the women's stories coincide and span decades and continents - from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland - the devastation of Ravensbruck is ever-present, as Kasia and Caroline strive to bring justice to those history has forgotten . . .
Other Information: Martha Hall Kelly is a native New Englander who lives in Connecticut and New York City with her husband Michael and dog Oliver. She worked as an advertising copywriter for many years and raised three wonderful children, who are now mostly out of the nest. All three of her novels have been instant New York Times bestsellers.
Her first novel, Lilac Girls - published in 2016 - tells the story of Polish women imprisoned at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp and New York socialite Caroline Ferriday's fight to help them recover. It is currently published in forty-nine countries. Her second novel, Lost Roses, tells the story of Caroline's mother Eliza's struggle to help displaced White Russian aristocrats, and Sunflower Sisters is a Civil War novel about Caroline Ferriday's abolitionist great-grandmother's family. Martha is working on her fourth novel, The Golden Doves, which tells the story of two best friends, former WWII resistance fighters who unite in the 1950s to bring their Nazis tormentors to long-overdue justice.
