SUNFLOWERS UNDER FIRE
This heartbreakingly intimate novel illuminates the strength of the human spirit.
This historical fiction was a Finalist for the 2019 Whistler Independent Book Awards, sponsored by the Writers Union of Canada. It was also a Semi-Finalist for the 2019 Kindle Book Awards, in the Literary Fiction category and received an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Writers Digest Self-Published Book Awards, Literary and Commercial Fiction.
In 1915, Lukia Mazurets, a Ukrainian farmwife, delivers her eighth child while her husband’s in the Tsar’s army. Soon after, she and her children are forced to flee the invading Germans.
Over the next fourteen years, Lukia uses her wits and faith to survive life in a refugee camp, a typhus epidemic, the Bolshevik revolution and one daughter’s forbidden love.
In this family saga, love and loss are bound together by a country always at war.
Based on her grandmother’s life, Diana Stevan captures the voices of those who had little say in a country that is still being fought over.
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Reviews of SUNFLOWERS UNDER FIRE
This is a compelling and beautifully told tale of endurance and faith. Mothers everywhere will be drawn to Lukia Mazurets, a no-nonsense Ukrainian woman who in 1915 must protect and save her family when her husband goes to war. Lukia’s arduous journey with her children is a true story of the little-known Ukrainian diaspora. Gripping, illuminating, and personal, this story is a must-read. – Martha Conway, author of The Underground River
Incident after incident, character after character, I was carried into worlds – from hardscrabble village life to wartime detention camps to ancient peasant rituals, not to mention intimacies of family life – that opened up in this page-turner of a novel. – Myrna Kostash, author of All of Baba’s Children.
Stevan succeeds in making a page-turner of her family history. – Lorraine Devon Wilke, author of The Alchemy of Noise
A well-written story, full of heartbreak and sorrows, but also determination, courage and love. – Texas
This book was so engrossing, it was very hard to put down. – Gayle Boyce
It’s a story of survival, heartbreak, and endurance of human spirit. Keep a box of tissues handy, you will need them! – Catherine
Rich in details that pull you in. – Jo Nell Huff
This story will hook you and you’ll cheer Lukia’s every success and mourn her losses. – KRBC NetGalley
For those who struggle to comprehend immigration and the perils of refugees this is a book that absolutely must be read. – Bob McClintock
A well-researched and well-told story of family, country, love, and above all, survival. Worth taking the journey with this family. – Anne Brill, Reedsy Discovery editor
AUTHOR READING of SUNFLOWERS UNDER FIRE
To Order
For independent booksellers, contact Ingram Spark. Or call the Ingram distributor at 1-800-937-8200. Sunflowers Under Fire ISBN: 978-1-988180-04-5
To read Sample Pages or to BUY, check out Amazon
And for Media Interviews about Sunflowers Under Fire, CLICK HERE.
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LUKIA’S FAMILY SAGA Series
The author, Diana Stevan, never planned to write any more about her baba, Lukia Mazurets, but because readers wanted to know what happened to the family, she wrote the sequel to Sunflowers Under Fire. Lilacs in the Dust Bowl follows Lukia and her children on their immigration journey and settlement in Canada. The third and final book of Lukia’s Family Saga, Paper Roses on Stony Mountain, comes out on Sept. 14, 2022.
You can find out more about the other two books in the series by clicking on the Book tab on the author’s website.
All of Diana’s nvoels have Book Club Dischussion Guides, including one for Sunflowers Under Fire.
