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In May 1999 Martha Hall Kelly, then an advertising copywriter in Connecticut, read a Victoria magazine article about the lilac garden at the Bellamy-Ferriday House in Bethlehem, Connecticut. On Mother’s Day 2000 she went to see it and was the only visitor on the tour. There she learned that the house’s owner, the New York socialite Caroline Ferriday, had brought Polish survivors of medical experiments at Ravensbrück to the United States for treatment. The gift shop had no book about her, so Kelly spent about ten years writing one. Lilac Girls came out in 2016, when she was in her fifties, entered the New York Times bestseller list in its first week and has sold more than two million copies. This guide covers her five key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 key books · 2016–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Martha Hall Kelly has published five novels: Lilac Girls (2016), Lost Roses (2019), Sunflower Sisters (2021), The Golden Doves (2023) and The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club (2025). Start with Lilac Girls, her debut and best-known book. The first three follow the women of one real family, the Woolseys and Ferridays, across three wars, and can be read in either publication order or story order.
Where to Start with Martha Hall Kelly
If you want her defining book
→ Lilac Girls (2016) — Ravensbrück and the real Caroline Ferriday.
If you want the family story from its beginning
→ Sunflower Sisters (2021) — the Civil War, two generations before Lilac Girls.
If you want a spy story set after the war
→ The Golden Doves (2023) — two former agents hunting a Ravensbrück doctor.
If you want something lighter
→ The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club (2025) — a home-front story set on Martha’s Vineyard.
5 Martha Hall Kelly Books, in Order
Lilac Girls
The novel opens in Manhattan in September 1939 and follows three women in turn: Caroline Ferriday, a real New York socialite working for French relief; Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish Catholic teenager who joins the resistance and is sent to Ravensbrück; and Herta Oberheuser, the real German doctor who carried out experiments on prisoners there. Their stories meet after the war, when Ferriday helps bring the surviving “Rabbits” to America. It became a New York Times bestseller in its first week and was published in 50 countries.
Lost Roses
A prequel to Lilac Girls about Caroline’s mother, Eliza Ferriday, on the eve of the First World War. It moves between New York, Paris and St Petersburg, and is told by Eliza; her friend Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs; and Varinka, a fortune-teller’s daughter hired to work in Sofya’s household, whose loyalties are tested by the revolution. Kelly took her starting point from an old newspaper photograph of Caroline in Russian dress, and from Eliza’s work for White Russian refugees.
Sunflower Sisters
The third book about the family goes back to the Civil War. Georgeanna Woolsey, a real ancestor of Caroline Ferriday and of Kelly herself, works as a Union nurse, from New York to Washington and Gettysburg. Jemma is enslaved on the Peeler Plantation in Maryland and is sold when the Union army comes through; Anne-May Wilson, the plantation’s mistress, runs it after her husband enlists and is drawn into a Southern spy network.
The Golden Doves
Josie Anderson, an American, and Arlette La Rue, a Frenchwoman, spied together in occupied Paris as the “Golden Doves” until they were caught and sent to Ravensbrück. Seven years later Josie, now interviewing former Nazi scientists for U.S. Army intelligence, hunts the camp doctor who experimented on her mother, while Arlette searches for her son Willie, taken from her in the camp, a trail that leads to French Guiana. The novel draws on Operation Paperclip, the post-war American programme that recruited German scientists.
The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club
In 1942 Cadence Smith, nineteen and set on becoming a writer, and her sister Briar try to keep the family farm on Martha’s Vineyard going as the U.S. Army arrives on the island. Briar spots German U-boats offshore, Cadence starts a book club that catches a New York publisher’s eye, and a stranger washes ashore amid rumours of a spy. A 2016 strand follows Mari Starwood, who discovers her own family is tied to the island. Kelly based the Smiths on her mother’s family, who settled on the Vineyard in 1891.
In What Order to Read Martha Hall Kelly
The first three novels are often called the Woolsey-Ferriday books. They were written backwards in time: Lilac Girls (1939 onwards), then Lost Roses (the First World War), then Sunflower Sisters (the Civil War). Each stands on its own, so publication order works well, and it is how most readers meet Caroline Ferriday first. If you prefer to follow the family forward, read Sunflower Sisters, Lost Roses, then Lilac Girls.
The Golden Doves is not part of the family series but returns to Ravensbrück, so it reads best after Lilac Girls. The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club stands alone.
A reading path
1. Lilac Girls (2016)
2. The Golden Doves (2023)
3. Lost Roses (2019)
4. Sunflower Sisters (2021)
5. The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club (2025)
The years · 1999–2025
Quick facts about Martha Hall Kelly
- Known for
- Novels built around real women whose stories were little known, beginning with Caroline Ferriday and the Polish prisoners of Ravensbrück in Lilac Girls.
- 1999
- Reads about the Ferriday lilac garden in Victoria magazine
- 2016
- Lilac Girls
- 2025
- The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club
- Born
- Milton, Massachusetts; grew up on the South Shore, including Hanson
- Education
- Journalism at Syracuse University and Northwestern University
- Before novels
- Advertising copywriter for many years
- Debut
- Lilac Girls (2016), written over about ten years
- Sales
- More than two million copies of Lilac Girls, published in 50 countries
- Lives
- Litchfield, Connecticut, and Hobe Sound, Florida
The red mark is 2016: Lilac Girls, her debut, which became a New York Times bestseller in its first week.
How Martha Hall Kelly Writes: Real Women, Three Voices
Every novel starts from a documented person or place. Caroline Ferriday, Herta Oberheuser and Georgeanna Woolsey are real; the Bellamy-Ferriday House can be visited; the Smith farm in The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club comes from her mother’s family. Kelly trained as a journalist and researches for years: Lilac Girls took about a decade, and she has said she looks for characters “that have overcome adversity”.
Her usual structure is three alternating first-person narrators from different sides of the same events: an American woman of means, a woman with far less power, and often someone complicit, such as the camp doctor in Lilac Girls or the plantation mistress in Sunflower Sisters. The separate lines converge as the book goes on.
She writes for a wide readership rather than a literary one, in plain prose with clear stakes, which helps explain why Lilac Girls became a book-club staple. Her later novels widen the range: The Golden Doves is a spy story and the Vineyard novel a home-front mystery.
Frequently asked questions about Martha Hall Kelly’s books
How many books has Martha Hall Kelly written?
Five novels: Lilac Girls (2016), Lost Roses (2019), Sunflower Sisters (2021), The Golden Doves (2023) and The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club (2025). A sixth, More Than Famous, about a 1970s folk-rock couple, is announced by Ballantine for May 2027.
What are Martha Hall Kelly’s books in order?
Lilac Girls (2016), Lost Roses (2019), Sunflower Sisters (2021), The Golden Doves (2023) and The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club (2025).
Where should I start with Martha Hall Kelly?
Lilac Girls. It is her debut, her best-known book and the one the next two family novels lead back to.
What is Martha Hall Kelly’s most famous book?
Lilac Girls (2016), about Caroline Ferriday and the Polish women experimented on at Ravensbrück. It has sold more than two million copies and was published in 50 countries.
In what order should I read the Lilac Girls books?
The three family novels were published in reverse historical order: Lilac Girls (Second World War), Lost Roses (First World War) and Sunflower Sisters (Civil War). Each stands alone. Read them in publication order to meet Caroline first, or in story order, starting with Sunflower Sisters, to follow the family forward.
Is Lilac Girls a true story?
It is based on one. Caroline Ferriday and Herta Oberheuser were real, as were the Polish political prisoners at Ravensbrück, known as the “Rabbits”, on whom Nazi doctors carried out surgical experiments, and Ferriday’s campaign to bring survivors to the United States for treatment. Kasia Kuzmerick and her family are fictional.
Is The Golden Doves a sequel to Lilac Girls?
No. It has new characters, Josie Anderson and Arlette La Rue, but it returns to Ravensbrück and the doctors who worked there, so it pairs naturally with Lilac Girls.
Is there a Lilac Girls film?
Not yet. In 2019 The News-Times reported that the actor Elisabeth Moss had optioned the novel for a film, but no adaptation has been released.
Can you visit the Lilac Girls house?
Yes. The Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden in Bethlehem, Connecticut, Caroline Ferriday’s family home, is run by Connecticut Landmarks and opens to visitors in season. Its lilac garden is what first drew Kelly there in 2000.
When did Martha Hall Kelly start writing?
Late. She worked for years as an advertising copywriter and started writing novels in her fifties; Lilac Girls was her first, published in 2016.
Footnotes
- About Martha Hall Kelly — marthahallkelly.com
- Martha Hall Kelly — Penguin Random House
- Lilac Girls at 10 — Connecticut Landmarks
- The Golden Doves — Kirkus Reviews, 2023
- Ten Terrifying Questions with Martha Hall Kelly — Booktopia
- Work of historical fiction set in real-life Conn. house — The News-Times, 2019
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Write about something you are completely passionate about. To the point of obsession.”
— Martha Hall Kelly, interview with Booktopia, “Ten Terrifying Questions”
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