Below is the complete list of Martha Hall Kelly’s Caroline Ferriday / Lilac Girls books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Caroline Ferriday / Lilac Girls Books
About Caroline Ferriday / Lilac Girls
Martha Hall Kelly’s Caroline Ferriday series, also commonly known as the Lilac Girls or Woolsey-Ferriday series, is a three-novel historical saga inspired by real women from the same extended American family. Rather than progressing chronologically, the books move backward through three generations, beginning with Caroline Ferriday during World War II, then turning to her mother, Eliza, during World War I, and finally to Caroline’s great-aunt Georgeanna Woolsey during the American Civil War. Together they connect more than eighty years of history through women whose lives were shaped by war, humanitarian work, and resistance to the limitations imposed on them.
Lilac Girls establishes the series through Caroline Ferriday, a New York philanthropist who worked with the French consulate before and during World War II and later devoted substantial effort to helping Polish women who had survived Ravensbrück concentration camp. Among those prisoners were the women known as the Ravensbrück Rabbits, who had been subjected to Nazi medical experiments.
Kelly constructs the novel through three perspectives. Caroline is based on the real Ferriday, while Polish prisoner Kasia Kuzmerick is a fictional character inspired by several Ravensbrück survivors. German physician Herta Oberheuser is historical. Moving between the United States, occupied Poland, and Germany allows the novel to examine persecution and survival alongside the later struggle to obtain medical help and recognition for the surviving women.
Lost Roses moves backward a generation to Caroline’s mother, Eliza Ferriday, during the years surrounding World War I and the Russian Revolution. Eliza was a real American philanthropist with connections to Russian aristocratic families. Kelly combines her history with fictional and historically inspired characters to explore the collapse of Imperial Russia, displacement, imprisonment, and the refugee crisis that followed revolution and war.
The change in period makes Lost Roses more than a conventional prequel explaining Caroline’s childhood. It establishes humanitarian service as part of the family history that preceded her work with the Ravensbrück survivors. Eliza’s experiences also broaden the geographical scope of the saga, moving between the United States, Russia, and Europe as established social orders disintegrate.
Sunflower Sisters reaches further back to the Civil War and Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey, Caroline Ferriday’s great-aunt. Georgeanna belonged to the remarkable Woolsey family and worked as a Union nurse when women were still struggling to establish a legitimate place in military medicine. Her storyline intersects with those of Jemma, a fictional enslaved young woman, and Anne-May Wilson, a plantation owner.
This final chronological layer changes the meaning of the family connection. The series is not suggesting that each generation simply repeats the same life. Georgeanna, Eliza, and Caroline live in dramatically different periods and respond to different crises. What links them is a tradition of educated women becoming involved in public and humanitarian causes at times when female independence and influence were still heavily constrained.
Publication order therefore produces an intentional movement deeper into the family’s past: readers meet Caroline first and then discover the women who preceded her. Historical chronology reverses that experience, beginning with the Civil War before advancing through two world wars.
The trilogy ultimately works as a family-linked historical mosaic rather than one continuous narrative. Its recurring subject is the inheritance of service—not merely through bloodline, but through generations of women choosing to intervene when war, persecution, and social convention make indifference easier.