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In this family saga, love and loss are bound together by a country always at war.
Finalist for the 2019 Whistler Independent Book Awards, and semi-finalist for the 2019 Kindle Book Awards.
Lukia Mazurets, a Ukrainian farmwife, delivers her eighth child while her husband is serving in the Tsar's army. Soon after, she and her children are forced to flee the invading Germans. Over the next fourteen years, Lukia must rely on her wits and faith to survive life in a refugee camp, the ravages of a typhus epidemic, the Bolshevik revolution, unimaginable losses, and one daughter's forbidden love.
Sunflowers Under Fire is a heartbreakingly intimate novel that illuminates the strength of the human spirit, as shown by its courageous and inspirational heroine. Based on the true stories of her grandmother's ordeals, author Diana Stevan captures the voices of those who had little say in a country that is still being fought over. Readers who've enjoyed The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah have bought this book.
About the author
Diana Stevan likes to joke she's a Jill of all trades as she's worked as a family therapist, teacher, librarian, model, actress and sports reporter for CBC television. With writing her passion, she's published newspaper articles, poetry; a short story, and a novelette, The Blue Nightgown, a coming-of-age story set in the 1950s.
Her novels cross genres: A Cry from the Deep, a time-slip romantic mystery/adventure; The Rubber Fence, women's fiction, inspired by her work on a psychiatric ward in the 1970s, and Sunflowers Under Fire, historical fiction / family saga, based on her Ukrainian grandmother's life during WWI and the wars that followed in Russia. This last novel was a finalist for the 2019 Whistler Independent Book Awards, sponsored by the Writers Union of Canada, a semi-finalist for the 2019 Kindle Book Awards, Literary Fiction category, and Honorable Mention in 2020 Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
When she isn't writing, she loves to garden, travel, and read. With their two daughters grown, Diana lives with her husband Robert on Vancouver Island and West Vancouver, British Columbia.
