Courtney Ellis

"Look at the birds"Through the painful days of the pandemic stuck in her home, Courtney Ellis found herself looking down in despair. Soon after, her beloved grandfather died unexpectedly. It was around this same time that Ellis took up watching birds. "Took up" might not be exactly right--as she puts it, "the switch flipped," and she's been borderline obsessed with birds ever since. Looking Up is a meditation on birding as a practice of hope. Weaving together stories from her own life, including the death of her grandfather, with reflections on birds of many kinds, Ellis invites us to open our eyes to the goodness of God both in the natural world and in our own lives. By "looking up" to the birds, Ellis found the beauty and wonder of these creatures calling her out of her darkness into the light and hope of God's promises.

Connected through time to her great-grandmother by a shared English countryside home, an American nurse tries to piece together her family's tangled history in this new historical novel from the acclaimed author of At Summer's End. England, 2019: Audrey Collins knows only two things about her beloved grandmother's past: She was born into nobility and she immigrated to America at seventeen years old. So when Audrey inherits her gran's home in North Yorkshire, she arrives expecting a sprawling country estate fit for lords and ladies. Instead, she finds an abandoned stone cottage perfectly preserved as Gran left it when she fled in 1941--ration book and all--and begins to uncover what secrets her family has been keeping. France, 1915: Lady Emilie Dawes is working as a nurse on the Western Front, grateful to have escaped the restraints of her restrictive, privileged home life. But the independence she fought hard to earn is suddenly jeopardized when a familiar man shows up in one of her hospital beds. Facing him means facing her past, and the decisions she had made in fear. As the war rages around her, Emilie realizes she cannot continue running from who she is until she decides who she truly wants to be. Over a hundred years apart, Audrey and Emilie each struggle to find purpose, love, and a place to call home in this enchanting family saga celebrating the courage of underestimated women--and the power a secret can hold across generations.

When an ambitious female artist accepts an unexpected commission at a powerful earl's country estate in 1920s England, she finds his war-torn family crumbling under the weight of long-kept secrets. From debut author Courtney Ellis comes a captivating novel about finding the courage to heal after the ravages of war. Alberta Preston acceptsthe commission of a lifetime when she receivesan invitation from the Earl of Wakeford to spend a summer painting at His Lordship's country home, Castle Braemore. Bertie imagines her residenceat the prodigiousestate will finally enable her to embark on a professional career and prove her worthas an artist, regardless of her gender. Upon her arrival, however, Bertie finds the opulent Braemore and its inhabitants diminished by the Great War. The earl has been living in isolation since returning from the trenches, locked awayin his rooms and hidingbattle scars behind a prosthetic mask. While his younger siblingseagerlywelcome Bertie into their world, she soon sees chips in that world's gilded facade. As she and the earl develop an unexpected bond, Bertie becomes deeply entangled in the pain and secrets she discovers hidden within Castle Braemore andthe hearts ofits residents. Threaded with hope, love, and loss,At Summer's Enddelivers a portrait of a noble family--and a world--changed forever by the war to end all wars.