The Forgotten Cottage

The Forgotten Cottage
Author: Courtney Ellis
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593201329

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, 2014: 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.

The Forgotten Cottage

The Forgotten Cottage
Author: Courtney Ellis
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593201310

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, 2014: 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.

The Bee Cottage Story

The Bee Cottage Story
Author: Frances Schultz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2015-07-07
Genre: House & Home
ISBN: 1632208644

Inspired by Frances Schultz’s popular House Beautiful magazine series on the makeover of her East Hampton house, Bee Cottage, what began as a decorating book evolved into a memoir combining the best elements of both: beautiful photos and a compelling personal story. Schultz taps into what she learned during her renovations of Bee Cottage—determining how each area in the house and garden would be used and furnished—to unravel the question of how a mature, intelligent, successful woman could have made such a mess of her personal life. As she figures out each room over a period of years, Frances finds a new path in life, also a continual process. She comes to learn that, like decorating a home, our lives must adapt to who we are and what we need at different points along the way. The Bee Cottage Story is part memoir, part home decorating guide. Frances discusses the kinds of useful, commonsense design issues that professionals take for granted and the rest of us just may not think of, prompting the reader to examine and discover her own “truth” in decorating—and in her life.

Grief Cottage

Grief Cottage
Author: Gail Godwin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1632867060

Longlisted for the 2020 Grand Prix de littérature américaine Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017 (Top 10) Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books 2017 Indie Next Summer 2018 Pick For Reading Groups The haunting tale of a desolate cottage, and the hair-thin junction between this life and the next, from bestselling National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin. After his mother's death, eleven-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there thirty years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. Eventually she was inspired to take up painting so she could capture its utter desolation. The islanders call it "Grief Cottage," because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane fifty years before. Their bodies were never found and the cottage has stood empty ever since. During his lonely hours while Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting and keeping her demons at bay, Marcus visits the cottage daily, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. Full of curiosity and open to the unfamiliar and uncanny given the recent upending of his life, he courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda. Grief Cottage is the best sort of ghost story, but it is far more than that--an investigation of grief, remorse, and the memories that haunt us. The power and beauty of this artful novel wash over the reader like the waves on a South Carolina beach.

At Summer's End

At Summer's End
Author: Courtney Ellis
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593201299

"A sparkling debut from a new author we’re all going to want more from.”—Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things 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 accepts the commission of a lifetime when she receives an invitation from the Earl of Wakeford to spend a summer painting at His Lordship's country home, Castle Braemore. Bertie imagines her residence at the prodigious estate will finally enable her to embark on a professional career and prove her worth as 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 away in his rooms and hiding battle scars behind a prosthetic mask. While his younger siblings eagerly welcome 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 and the hearts of its residents. Threaded with hope, love, and loss, At Summer's End delivers a portrait of a noble family--and a world--changed forever by the war to end all wars.

French Country Cottage

French Country Cottage
Author: Courtney Allison
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: House & Home
ISBN: 1423648935

Discover design inspiration as a photographer and blogger details the story of her renovation of a 1940s cottage in the California countryside. A little, abandoned vacation house that could, set in the center of rolling fields and trees becomes the cottage home of her dreams. A French country–style cottage filled with original elements and an exquisite mix of rustic and refined. The years of renovation allowed Courtney to create a lifestyle that is fueled by inspiration and beauty, a touch of whimsy, and an abundance of everyday elegance. The journey has been shared on her popular blog French Country Cottage, and now, through the publication of her first book, her readers will experience a reveal of more of her home and property and the inspirations behind her beloved style. Courtney's inspiring photography reveals every nuance of her style and home including a muted color palette, old brassy door knobs, chippy paint, antiques, her greenhouse and garden, and an abundance of entertaining and holiday decorating style. Blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor and embracing well-worn as well loved, French Country Cottage is a style that celebrates simplicity, indulges in romance, cherishes pieces with history and believes a chandelier and fresh flowers belong in every room.

Forgotten Boxes

Forgotten Boxes
Author: Becki Willis
Publisher: Clear Creek Publishers
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2018-03-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9780998790220

Named sole heir to her aunt's estate, Charity Gannon arrives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, hoping to find a link to her past. She's not looking for lost treasures; she is searching for a connection to the aunt she barely knew. What she finds is a thirty-something-year-old mystery and questions with no answers. A sad, secluded cottage, all but hidden amid the vines. A man's suit of clothes, tainted with dried blood and a bullet hole. Four forgotten boxes, stuffed into a large bag and buried in the far corners of the shed. These are not just any boxes. These are unopened, undelivered boxes, left behind by the now-defunct Kingdom Parcel. All four boxes are marked March 14, 1984... the very day her uncle, president and driver for the delivery service, was said to have committed suicide. Four forgotten boxes, whose owners might still be out there, waiting for a delivery that never arrived. The undelivered boxes haunt Charity, tugging on her conscience. Hadn't someone noticed them missing? Hadn't anyone wondered about the failed delivery? Thinking it might be fun to surprise the recipients after all these years, Charity sets out to deliver the packages to their rightful owners. Along the way, one of the love stories she discovers is her own. Fate throws her into the sturdy arms of Tarn Danbury, a burly sugarmaker with eyes as beautiful as the mountain pond from which he was named, and a voice as smooth and rich as the dark syrup he produces. The story behind one box is delightful. Another is heartbreaking. And one might very well be the death of her.

The Forgotten Room

The Forgotten Room
Author: Karen White
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698191013

New York Times bestselling authors Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig present a masterful collaboration—a rich, multigenerational novel of love and loss that spans half a century.... 1945: When critically wounded Captain Cooper Ravenel is brought to a private hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, young Dr. Kate Schuyler is drawn into a complex mystery that connects three generations of women in her family to a single extraordinary room in a Gilded Age mansion. Who is the woman in Captain Ravenel’s miniature portrait who looks so much like Kate? And why is she wearing the ruby pendant handed down to Kate by her mother? In their pursuit of answers, they find themselves drawn into the turbulent stories of Olive Van Alan, driven in the Gilded Age from riches to rags, who hired out as a servant in the very house her father designed, and Lucy Young, who in the Jazz Age came from Brooklyn to Manhattan seeking the father she had never known. But are Kate and Cooper ready for the secrets that will be revealed in the Forgotten Room? READERS GUIDE INCLUDED

The Cottage on Juniper Ridge

The Cottage on Juniper Ridge
Author: Sheila Roberts
Publisher: MIRA
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2018-05-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1488099758

Revisit the fourth novel in bestselling author Sheila Roberts’ adored Life in Icicle Falls series How to Change Your Life… Can a book change your life? Yes, when it’s Simplicity, Muriel Sterling’s guide to plain living. In fact, it inspires Jen Heath to leave her stressful, overcommitted life in Seattle and move to Icicle Falls, where she rents a lovely little cottage on Juniper Ridge. And where she can enjoy simple pleasures—like joining the local book club—and complicated ones, like falling in love with her sexy landlord, Garrett Armstrong. Her sister Toni is ready for a change, too. She has a teenage daughter who’s constantly texting her friends, a husband who’s more involved with his computer than he is with her, and a son who’s consumed by video games. Toni wants her family to grow closer—to return to a simpler way of life. Other women in town, like Stacy Thomas, are also inspired to unload their excess stuff and some of the extra responsibilities they’ve taken on. But as they all discover, sometimes life simply happens. It doesn’t always happen simply! Originally published in 2014