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 do, but almost at once, their views of the world and their marriage begin to diverge. Laurus's beloved family is in Copenhagen, hostage to what the fortunes of Hitler's war will bring, especially as his mother is Jewish. When Laurus chooses to leave Sydney in the fall of 1941 to help build a Danish Resistance from London, Sydney is dismayed. By the time they are reunited four years later, Laurus's family and the reader have been through one of the most stirring stories of the war: Denmark's courageous grassroots rescue of virtually all 7,000 of the country's Jews. Meanwhile, in America, Sydney has led a group knitting for the war effort, and had a baby. In the decades to come, many people, especially their three grown children, will wonder whether these two very different people understand each other at all. If they do, how do they stay together? Laurus likes to claim that in heaven you get to see the movie of your life, with all the blanks filled in. In their old age Sydney fears what he might see and why he wants to know; their children fear he'll die and there won't be any movie. But there will be. Gutcheon revisits Dundee, Maine, to create a Cinderella story with a different ending. Sydney Brant grows up in wealth and privilege, the apple of her father's eye. When he dies, she is left with her overbearing mother, who is impossible to please. Sydney escapes to Manhattan to be a singer, determined to live her life just the way she wants to. She meets Laurus Moss, a poor but gifted piano player from Copenhagen. They fall in love and marry, but World War II intervenes. Laurus, half-Jewish, goes to England to aid the Dutch underground, while Sydney stays home to have a baby and organize knitting groups. The horrors of the camps and his family's trials are mere annoyances to Sydney, whose world is all about sailboat races and children. Told against the backdrop of the amazing Danish Resistance and their protection of the Dutch Jews, Gutcheon's tale is more than just a story of a marriage; it's a metaphor for an era. Elizabeth Dickie Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “[E]nthralling . . . triumphant and true.” (Boston Globe) “Absorbing…Daring…Gutcheon has strong narrative skills.” (New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice) “Pure storytelling…[Gutcheon’s] characters and settings are alive, sparkling with deft touches of period detail…riveting…vibrant.” (New York Newsday) “A remarkably rich and emotionally jarring novel filled ultimately with hope.” (Pages Magazine) “A great drama, cinematically told…[Gutcheon] writes elegantly about the complex bonds of family.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) “A gentle, even tender book. Every reader will be wiser for it.” (BookPage) “A good old–fashioned, all–encompassing read, with tears and smiles guaranteed.” (Library Journal) “Compelling…Ambitious…Gutcheon’s insights are…keen, her sympathy for all her characters…contagious.” (Kirkus Reviews) “Charting a marriage against the backdrop of a tumultuous century, Gutcheon writes evocatively of love and war.” (Publishers Weekly) “Gutcheon’s tale is more than just a story of a marriage; it’s a metaphor for an era.” (Booklist) “Stirring…The World War II saga anchors the novel, giving it resonance beyond the family dramas Gutcheon tells so well.” (Los Angeles Times) “A rich saga of an American family told with moving clarity.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) “A compelling and deeply felt reading experience.” (Times Leader) Beth Gutcheon is the critically acclaimed author of the novels, The New Girls , Still Missing , Domestic Pleasures , Saying Grace , Five Fortunes , More Than You Know , Leeway Cottage , and Good-bye and Amen . She is the writer of several film scripts, including the Academy-Award nominee The Children of Theatre Street . She lives in New York City.