Leeway Cottage

by Beth Gutcheon

Book Overview

In this beautifully written tour de force of a novel, Beth Gutcheon takes readers back to the coastal village of Dundee, Maine. There, in a Victorian summer house called Leeway Cottage, we witness the scenes of a long twentieth-century marriage. In April 1940, as the Nazis march into Denmark, a rich girl of the Dundee summer colony named Sydney Brant marries a gifted Danish pianist, Laurus Moss. They believe they are well matched, as young lovers...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060539054
• ISBN13: 9780060539054
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Leeway Cottage Review

This book depicts the plight of Danish Jews as they went through the Holocaust experience. This book describes the horrible conditions in the concentration camps. You will learn what happened to the Jews and the people that helped save their lives. At the same time; Americans summered in Leeway Cottage on the coast of Maine virtually living in a different world during the war years. The book also describes the toxic relationship of a daughter and a mother. You will discover whether the daughter transfers her miserable experiences with her mother or becomes a wonderful wife and mother. It also talks about five seperate and different marriages and the children born of these unions There is a very surprising ending that will shock you. You will become familiar with the characters lives before, during and after the war years. You will love some of the characters and despise others. I couldn't wait to turn the pages of this book as I lived the experiences that were so well described in this book. It was a great novel and I love reading Beth Gutcheon's books. This is the third one that I have read and would highly recommend reading her novels.

Couldn't put it down

I found the multi-generational family saga engrossing, and the war story riveting and deeply affecting --- and the juxtaposition of the two threads intensified my involvement. For me, this was one of those rare novels that made me want to do nothing but read, read, read.

The Best of the Spate of "Coastal Maine" Novels Avalanching Us Lately...

Beth Gutcheon is an author with a gift for the atmospheric; say, reading a line that gives you a little 'déja vu', without having had the experience to remind you.... Anyway, I loved this book. Read it right through quickly, then was disappointed to end it. 5 *****s from me- LMcK

One of the Best Books Out This Year!

"Leeway Cottage" is so good that I tried to SLOW DOWN so I wouldn't finish it too fast...but I couldn't! All the characters are so vivid and interesting and Gutcheon does a fabulous job showing us their growth and change. There was a wonderful wealth of historical information about the Danish experience in WWII that I had never read about before in such rich, if disturbing, detail. To call this novel "great beach reading" is to trivialize its impact and depth...but it certainly is the book to select if you want to be transported this summer.

Leeway Cottage

If you are a book club member or better yet, a book club facilitator, this is the book for you. There is something for everyone in this novel. It is both a family saga and an historial novel recounting the Danish Resistance Movement in World War II. The author does an artful job of weaving the two elements together. Often in a book of this scope, the author reaches a point where he has to tie up the loose ends and the finale disappoints. Not so here. Gutcheon finishes on a strong note. The book is well-researched, well-written, poignant, insightful and laugh-out-loud funny. It doesn't get any better than this.