Leeway Cottage

Genre: Fiction

I gave this book **

This is the story of Sydney Brandt (not her given name) who is born of wealth and privilege before World War II. Her parents own an estate in Dundee, Maine where the family summers. When her father dies, her mother remarries and the three visit the estate infrequently. Sydney discovers a talent of, and love for singing, and goes off to college to pursue a career in opera. She hires a pianist to accompany her during her practices, Laurus Moss, who is from Denmark. The two marry and move to a cottage, also in Dundee, owned by family friends. When Laurus learns that his family, all in Copenhagen and Jewish, is under threat from the Nazis, he decides to enlist in the US army as a spy. While he’s abroad Sydney gives birth to their two daughters. Much of the story is about what happens to Laurus during the war and what happens to Sydney while she’s home waiting for him.

The story is written using the guest book of the estate and then the cottage. That was probably my favorite part of this book. Otherwise, I didn’t love this story. The writing wasn’t great and the story felt disjointed and went on and on without reason for the plot. There is a slight note of interest when we find out what happened to Laurus and Sydney while they were separated, but even that was predictable. I do like the idea of the story of a family home being passed on from generation to generation and what that does to a family (like in Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan) as well as the secrets the house itself holds, but this story didn't touch on any of that. Overall, this story lacked depth and interest.