Set between modern-day Los Angeles and late 19th-century Europe, The Secret Life of Sunflowers intertwines the lives of a rising auctioneer and a determined Dutchwoman who reshaped art history. Across time, these women confront betrayal, grief, and the constraints of their eras to claim purpose—and a legacy that binds them together.
Main Characters
Emsley Wilson
Ambitious and quick-witted, Emsley is a Los Angeles auctioneer whose life implodes when her business partner and ex-boyfriend betrays her, just as she’s mourning her larger-than-life grandmother. A bequest draws her into a hidden family past and the diary of a 19th‑century woman whose resilience becomes a blueprint for Emsley’s own fight to define success on her terms. Guided by her love for her grandmother, Violet Velar, and buoyed by the steady integrity of Bram Dekker, she learns to trust her instincts, navigate a sexist industry, and rebuild after public and private humiliation. Her clashes with Trey—and the rupture with her former best friend, Diya—force her to stand alone before she chooses a healthier partnership. By the end, she transforms from a talented employee of her own dreams into their architect, creating space for both love and legacy.
Johanna Bonger
Johanna enters the story as a young woman trained to seek a respectable marriage, yet her curiosity and moral courage propel her far beyond convention. After marrying Theo van Gogh and witnessing the devastating losses of both him and his brother, Vincent, she refuses to let Vincent’s work vanish into storage and scorn. As a widowed mother, she teaches herself the brutal mechanics of the art world—managing a boardinghouse, cultivating critics, staging exhibitions—and endures condescension from institutions and from her own brother, Dries. Her mission turns private grief into public purpose, transforming her into the strategist who secured Vincent’s posthumous fame. Through discipline, empathy, and audacity, she becomes the historical engine of the novel’s central question: who preserves genius when the world looks away?
Supporting Characters
Violet Velar
A celebrated, flamboyant artist and Emsley’s grandmother, Violet sets the modern plot in motion with a final gift that reveals both family secrets and a map to courage. Her glittering career masks private wounds—including a youthful assault—that she transmuted into strength, generosity, and mentorship. In death, she remains Emsley’s fiercest champion, while her complicated bond with her daughter, Anna, exposes the costs of a life lived unapologetically.
Theo van Gogh
An art dealer with a steadfast heart, Theo is Vincent’s advocate and Johanna’s partner in intellect and love. His devotion anchors Vincent through illness and failure, and his faith seeds Johanna’s lifelong campaign. Though his arc ends tragically, he bequeaths Johanna a mission and the moral clarity to see it through.
Vincent van Gogh
The brilliant, tormented artist at the center of the historical timeline, Vincent appears largely through letters and recollection. His uncompromising vision and mental illness make him both a burden and a beacon to those who love him. In life, he is dismissed; in death, he is resurrected by Johanna’s diligence into the immortal painter the world now recognizes.
Bram Dekker
An attorney who inherits Violet’s estate work, Bram becomes Emsley’s steady ally and eventual partner. A widower marked by grief and integrity, he offers practical help, emotional maturity, and a model of ethical love that contrasts sharply with Emsley’s past. Their relationship is a slow unfurling of trust in which both learn to step forward without erasing what came before.
Trey
Emsley’s ex and cofounder, Trey functions as the modern antagonist—profit‑driven, condescending, and convinced he deserves control. His attempt to shutter their company and his romance with Diya catalyze Emsley’s break from dependence. He remains a foil rather than a transformed figure, sharpening the novel’s portrait of ambition without empathy.
Anna Wilson
Emsley’s practical, order‑loving mother, Anna carries a lifetime of resentment toward Violet for the chaos of her childhood. Her skepticism about risk and art puts her at odds with Emsley, yet grief opens a narrow corridor toward understanding. By the end, her willingness to seek the truth about her past hints at reconciliation.
Andries 'Dries' Bonger
Johanna’s older brother and Theo’s friend, Dries initially fosters the match and later embodies the pressures of respectability. He urges Johanna to remarry, to burn Vincent’s “worthless” canvases, and to choose safety over conviction. Protective but blinkered, he becomes the obstacle Johanna must outthink rather than outfight.
Minor Characters
- Diya: Emsley’s former best friend whose relationship with Trey shatters their bond; time and hard conversations allow a fragile reconciliation.
- Bram Dekker Sr.: Violet’s confidant and original attorney, quietly in love with her and the keeper of the truth about the assault that shaped her life.
- Sergei Prokhorov: Bram’s eccentric cousin and antiques maven who helps Emsley monetize Violet’s estate and invests early in her new venture.
- Strena: A renowned performance artist and Violet’s friend who mentors Emsley, reframing her self‑worth and helping translate Johanna’s letters.
- Anna Dirk: Johanna’s steadfast friend, emblem of a traditional domestic path that affirms rather than undermines Johanna’s unconventional choice.
- Senator Taylor Wertheim: The powerful man who assaulted Violet in her youth, reappearing at her funeral to face a moment of belated justice.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
Emsley’s modern circle mirrors the historical one: Violet’s posthumous guidance and Bram’s principled support echo the earlier partnership between Johanna and Theo. In both timelines, love becomes an engine for work—romantic devotion matures into a shared mission, turning private loyalty into public legacy. Where Emsley must learn to claim space in a male‑dominated marketplace, Johanna must invent a path through an art world that refuses her authority; each discovers that persistence, not permission, is the key.
Antagonistic forces consolidate around convention and control. Trey’s profit‑first pragmatism, Anna’s risk aversion, and Dries’s insistence on respectability all pressure the heroines to shrink their ambitions. These characters are not cartoonish villains; they embody the social weather—sexism, class anxiety, propriety—that Emsley and Johanna must endure and outlast.
Finally, the diary forms a bridge between timelines, allowing Emsley to encounter Johanna as a mentor across a century. Through it, grief (for Violet, for Theo and Vincent) is transmuted into purpose: Emsley honors Violet by building a future that refuses silence, and Johanna honors Theo by making Vincent’s art impossible to ignore. The result is a network of alliances—romantic, familial, and artistic—strong enough to outlive any single life.