Winner of the 2023 Independent Book Publishers Association's Benjamin Franklin Award ! (Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book - fiction.) Finalist for the Eric Hoffer First Horizons Award . Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. Semi-finalist for Publisher's Weekly Booklife Prize. The Civil War scattered her family and now, along with her beloved horse, a young woman must travel across a war-torn country to collect what's left of her life. For fifteen-year-old Ellis Cady, life has gone quiet on her western Tennessee homestead. Her father and older brother left to sell horses to the army two years earlier and never returned. She watched her mother's health decline, finally succumbing to a broken heart. Her twin brother left in search of their father, and while he was gone neighbors moved out of their Quaker community, searching for peace ahead of the final sweep of war. Ellis is left with nothing but the company of the remaining horses and the letters and journals she continues to write, trying to make sense of a desolate world. A small band of soldiers rides through to claim the last of the herd, and hope for the return of life as she knew it, evaporates like the mist on the river. When the head-strong mare, Billie, returns, having escaped from the soldiers, Ellis takes it as a sign to leave. Disguised as a boy, for safety and comfort, she rides off to find her twin. Though war refuses to fade, Ellis stumbles upon an unlikely group of rescuers who teach her family is more than blood, and love has no limits. "...Ehrlich's vivid historical coming-of-age novel...Ellis River teems with well-drawn characters and vibrant wilderness settings. A memorable proto-feminist protagonist, Ellis strives not just to reunite her family but to carve out a meaningful life. [Journal entries and letters]...lay bare the character's heart and showcase Ehrlich's sure-handed period language as she brings life to perspectives too often unexplored in narratives of the era, with empathy, insight, a touch of romance..." — Publishers Weekly Booklife "Ehrlich's prose is accessible and spare and particularly skillful at describing the harsh reality of war and its battlegrounds...The story simutaneously highlights the loneliness and camaraderie that can be found during wartime...Ehrlich's story of a girl surrounded by loss...as she searches for her family is engaging and makes for a quick, heartfelt read. An earnest and poignant bildungsroman."— Kirkus Reviews Nicki Ehrlich grew up in Southern Illinois before attending college at the University of Denver and later, Idaho State University, where she graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy/English. After living ten "horse-rich" years in Idaho, she moved on to Oregon, and later Washington, where she realized she had unwittingly traveled the Oregon Trail. While living in the Pacific Northwest, Nicki continued to write fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She has won awards for her poetry and creative writing, including the Writer's Digest Annual Poetry Awards and the Ray Fabrizio Memorial Award. Her writing has been published in Scheherazade, the literary magazine of MPC, among other magazines and newspapers. Nicki holds a Certificate in Creative Writing from Monterey Peninsula College and is a member of the Central Coast branch of the California Writers Club. She also holds a Coast Guard Captain's License and currently lives on California's inspiring central coast where she is at work on the sequel to Ellis River.