Martha Hall Kelly

Lilac Girls braids three real and invented women through the Second World War: Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite who spent years helping the Polish women experimented on at Ravensbrück; a Polish prisoner; and Herta Oberheuser, the German doctor who did the operations and served five years for it. Kelly found Ferriday by visiting her house in Connecticut, which is a museum, and worked from her papers. Sunflower Sisters goes back to the same family in the American Civil War. She had worked in advertising and wrote the first book over about a decade.