When a devastating fire sweeps through St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the summer of 1892, nineteen-year-old Lily Hunt hopes it’s the beginning of a new life that will transform her from a dutiful daughter to a crusader, a suffragist, and a woman in love. Twenty years later, Lily’s daughter Grace is deeply immersed in campaigning for women to have the vote. When Grace learns of her mother’s involvement in the suffrage cause, the Lily she discovers bears little resemblance to the mother who raised her. Grace sets out on a quest to discover what changed Lily, and why she wants to hide her past. A Sudden Sun plunges into the world of two Newfoundland women at the turn of a new century, exploring the timeless and tangled bonds between mother and daughter.