The Sunflower Widows

Matthew Fults’s The Sunflower Widows is a heartwarming novel set against the backdrop of Ukraine’s recent war, charting the lives of ordinary villagers as their world is upended by conflict. The narrative centers on Yulia, a young nurse, and her husband Maksym, an aspiring writer, who move to a small village to build a peaceful life. When war erupts, Maksym volunteers to defend his homeland, leaving Yulia and the other women—many of whom will become widows—behind. Through the eyes of Yulia, her mentor Kathryna (the village caretaker and herself a widow from an earlier war), and Ana, the wife of an older soldier named Borys, the story oscillates between past and present, love and loss, as women gather around kitchen tables and gravesides to mourn, remember, and endure. Within the humble walls of Kathryna’s cottage, sorrow is given words, and grit finds its way through quiet embraces. Her home transforms into a sanctuary for the grieving—a place where shattered hearts gather. Here, amidst flickering lamplight and hushed voices, invisible wounds are carried together, and the first seeds of hope are sown in war-ravaged Ukraine.

The Sunflower Widows is one of those novels that brought out the tears I never knew I had. The descriptions of wartime Ukraine are terrific, and the author clinically captures the burden of war on widows, the uncertainty of the experience, and the bond that binds a community together in times of strife. These elements are delivered with forensic clarity, and I marveled at how the author weaves details into the extraordinary experiences of the characters, transforming their pain into shared hope. Fults’s layered, empathetic portrayal of women living through war will captivate readers immensely. The characters are rendered with sensitivity: Yulia’s journey from young love to widowhood is heartbreakingly real, while Ana’s marriage to the stoic Borys is marked by the quiet sorrow of childlessness and the long agony of military life. Kathryna, whose own family was shaped by World War II, transmits the village’s traditions of care and perseverance, offering a generational perspective on loss. The world-building is immersive, blending domestic details—the ritual of making tea, tending gardens, and communal gatherings—with the ever-present sounds of distant mortars and the routines of war. Themes of memory, love, sacrifice, and the persistence of hope in the face of overwhelming grief are cleverly explored in this spellbinding tale of war. Fans of the The Nightingale: A Novel by Kristin Hannah and A Woman Is No Man: A Read with Jenna Pick by Etaf Rum will find Fult’s novel irresistible. This author deftly illustrates that grief can be a silent companion in a world ravaged by war, but the stories told by candlelight become the ground where seeds of hope and healing begin to take root. It is elegiac and profoundly moving.