When fiercely self reliant widow Margreete accidentally starts a fire in her Maine home, her daughter Liddie uproots her family to care for Margreete. As Margreete retreats into memories, Liddie struggles to balance her duties as a wife and mother with her devotion for music. Meanwhile, the children, Bernie and Eva, come of age amidst the rapidly shifting social landscape. The story delivers a engrossing portrait of each family member as they navigate purpose, tradition, and new ideas.

When I think of literary fiction, I think of books just like this one, that gives all the feels. This is a perfect book to snuggle up with on any day.

A really endearing story which I loved.

Perfect for a lazy day on the beach. I whiled away the hours with the plot and characters

Thanks to netgalley

I love a historical fiction story, and gravitated towards MARGREETE’S HARBOR for the 1960s timeline.

It follows three generations of family as the ailing Grandmother suffers from dementia and living alone in Maine.

Beginning in 1955, the story spans through the years and I thought it was a heartwarming and endearing book.

*many thanks to St Martin’s Press/Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

Liddy and her family move back to Maine to care for her elderly mother. They experience many ups and downs in their lives as they all try to get along in the same house.

Pros: Good storytelling, learn about historical events, learn about life caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, learn about music and composers.


Cons: Slow read, always changing narrators and time periods, and often story goes off on a tangent.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Burnt Harbor, Maine is the beautiful small town setting for this multigenerational saga. The novel takes place in the years (1955-1968). Life in some respects was much simpler back then but families still faced some of the same life changing issues as we experience today such as caring for elderly loved ones. Life was tumultuous for other reasons as well: war (Vietnam), race relations as well as the assassination of President Kennedy. his brother Bobby as well as Dr. Martin Luther King.

The story begins with Margreete, an elderly woman with dementia who lives alone and starts a fire in her home. Her daughter Liddie, her husband Harry and their two children Bernie and Eva upend their lives in Chicago and move to Maine to live with Margreete as she is unwilling to leave her home or consider other options posed to her. Over the course of the novel a third, unplanned child is born as well and, as life marches on the reader experiences both big and small moments in the lives of this family.

Margreete was an interesting character, married and widowed 3x, with 3 children, it was sad to see her once full life slip away by the loss of her memory. There are a lot of themes covered in this story: marriage, family, parenting, fidelity, homosexuality and more. I found the story to be quiet in nature yet rich in detail. This novel took my longer than I expected to read but, I did enjoy it. I probably appreciated the story more having grown up during this time period when my own grandfather also lived in the same house with us. It was a time when family often care for family under the same roof. Readers who enjoy multigenerational, small town stories might want to add this one to their list.

http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/2022/04/book-reviews-memorial-drive-daughters.html

This was a book that focused on a 10-year time period during the 1960s. Reading about Margreet and her increasing dementia is moving. The fact that her daughter packs up her family to move to Maine to help with Margreete is astounding. The time period of the 60s was turbulent … JFK, Vietnam, MLK. It was uplifting to see how each character grew as Margreete became a huge influence on their life.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Title: Margreete's Harbor
Author: Eleanor Morse
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 3.0
Pub Date: April 20, 2021

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for sending me an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

T H R E E • W O R D S

Slow-paced • Tense • Nostalgic

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Set in Maine, Margreete Bright, a widowed and fiercely independent woman is dealing with the onset of dementia. When she accidentally sets her kitchen on fire, it becomes obvious she can no longer care for herself. Her daughter, Liddie, decides to uproot her family from Michigan in order to care for her ailing mother. Her husband, Harry, isn't onboard, yet she is ready to go without him. What unfolds are ten years in the history of the family, as they seek to discover themselves.

💭 T H O U G H T S

When I first read the synopsis for Margreete's Harbor I just had a feeling this would be a book I'd love. While I enjoyed the story, I felt as thought the execution just wasn't there. The pace was extremely slow and not a whole lot happens. I didn't develop a connection to any of the characters aside from Margreete herself, and I wanted more of her story. And in the beginning I couldn't quite figure out the characters at all. It did have some good moments, and provided a portrait of a family during the 50s and 60s. On the whole I just think Eleanor's Morse writing style was not the right fit for me, but readers who enjoy a slow-paced exploration of a dysfunctional family may want to pick this one up.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers who enjoy dysfunctional family dramas

⚠️ CW: house fire, divorce, death, dementia, war, sexual assault, animal death, grief, homophobia, infidelity

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"What does it mean to be alive? To be curious. The opposite was dead. Margreete, for all her confusion, was never dead until she was dead."

Beautifully written novel about the realities of family. I loved this story and thought about it long after I turned the last page.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC digital copy. I have not been compensated for my opinion and this is an honest review.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish reading this ARC digital copy before needing to switch to other books that were being archived. The book is no longer on my Goodreads "want to read" list, but I will update my review to reflect an updated opinion if I decide to finish at a later date.

A touching tale of a family coming to terms with the decline of their formidable matriarch, Magreete's harbor is a masterful family portrait on par with The Dutch House. I would imagine that if I came back to this book later in my life I would appreciate it more. The writing was stunning and the character development was impressive.

Set in Maine this story of family will surely touch your heart.
Liddy is worried about her mother and her sudden bursts of memory loss, but when she sets fire to her kitchen Liddy knows things have gotten much worse then her and her brother thought. Uprooting her children and her husband Harry id not ideal but Liddy can't rest knowing something worse could happen. Once the family gets settled into Margreete's home Liddy hopes things will get better but Margreete is confused and at times thinks her grand kids are her own children. She keeps leaving from the house and gets very angry when people point out she is forgetful. Inside she knows things aren't the same, but there's no way she needs to live in a home. If only Liddy could convince her mom that the family loves her and just wants her to be safe they could all live together peacefully. As tension rises between Liddy and Harry every little instance of forgetfulness with Margreete becomes that much more difficult to deal with.

A moving piece that explores what it means to be there for your family, especially in the hardest times.

Margreete Bright lives alone but finds herself in a dilemma as she has now some glimpses of dementia her daughter realizes this knowing she will have to do something drastically soon even moving her whole family to her mother's house.

This is not what Liddie was expecting moving her whole family to another place and starting all over, many new circumstances are happening even the life of her son and daughter had to change but sooner or later Liddy finds that this change wasn't so bad that this new environment is helping in many ways to her whole family to start and focus on things that eventually will become more important in their life path.

Liddie finds herself on a new musical job that eventually will bring her satisfaction even dough at times she misses her old life and job.

One of the things that I didn't like was the "cheating part" I'm not going to elaborate as it was not very clear but it was there and somehow made me not like some of the characters, I felt like Liddie was doing so much and meanwhile her husband was all over the place in his head.

Margreete, Eva, and Bernie were my favorite characters they really brought so much joy and laughter to the story and the book. even if Liddies mom was dementia at times she was very nice and made me laugh so much.

Another thing that I like about this book is that we get to learn more about Margreet's past stories.

This was one of those novels that I just knew would become one of my all-time favorites. It touched my heart with its eloquence.

The characters were so authentically and vividly portrayed that I felt I knew them – and shared their lives.

The Maine setting added greatly to the narrative and is one I’ve come to appreciate. The eye-catching cover drew me in, and I’m so, so glad it did.

Many, many themes were covered within the pages of “Margreete’s Harbor“. Marital relationships, fidelity, dementia, parenting, hurt, homosexuality, what it means to be a family, and life – glorious, messy life. The book eloquently portrays the complicated intricacies of married life.

“You can’t take bad things back. Not as a person. Not as a country. It becomes part of who you are.”

Set from the mid 1950s to the late 1960s, in addition to being a narrative about a decent, complicated family, this book also incorporated some pivotal events in American history. The civil unrest in the South, racism, the Vietnam war and the draft, the assassination of President Kennedy, the speeches of Martin Luther King, etc.

I highly recommend this wonderful novel to those who enjoy well executed literary fiction that is character focused and includes more than a little history. A wonderful read!

The story is set in Maine in the 60’s, the country is in turmoil -Vietnam and racism are on everyone’s mind. This book is well written, but the lack of communication between family members was difficult at best. They clearly love each other, but don’t seem to understand how to show it. Melancholy is a perfect word for this families interactions.
The Grandmother was a challenging character, losing my Mother in Law and Mother to dementia in the past year created such angst, I had a hard time focusing on the story. Life is messy, people are messy, it isn’t simple but you need to hold on to your beliefs. Great ending!

“It’s not safe to love. There’s no way to make love safe. Every time you love someone, you risk losing them. But living in safety is no way to love.”

MARGREETE’S HARBOR is a book of all of the little moments that make up a family’s life over the course of ten years. Harry and Liddie move with their children to Maine after Liddie’s mother, Margreete, accidentally sets her house on fire. as this young family spends the next decade living with and caring for Margreete as her memory fades, the children discover their identities, and Harry and Liddie navigate through career and marriage struggles. I loved being immersed into this family’s life, watching them grow apart and then together as they learned to love each other. the writing about all the little moments that make up a family and a life is beautiful. for fans of Elizabeth Strout and Mary Beth Keane. 4/5⭐️—I liked it!

I have tried to finish this title multiple times. I can not seem to get the connection I need to the characters.

I'm calling it at 20%. DNF.

Thank you for my review copy. All opinions are my own.

This was a sweet--actually bittersweet-- story of Margreete and her extended family who move in with her when she accidentally burns the kitchen down and it becomes clear to them that she has dementia. She refuses to leave so they come to her--daughter Lizzie, her husband and two young children. So the novel spans ten years as we see them all grow and cope. This was especially hard for me as my dad lived with us for a while and then we had to commit him to Memory Care as it became more than we could handle medically. But it's tender and lovely, so worth the read as it details so many wonderful moments between family members even as they grow and have conflicting emotions about other loved ones!

This is one of those novels that I didn’t want to end. I fell in love with the characters and now I’ll be wondering where the rest of their lives will take take them and if they are happy. It’s a beautifully written story of a family spanning over a decade from the mid 1950’s to the late 1960’s, a family whose ties are at times fragile. Liddie and her husband Harry uproot their two young children Bernie and Eva and move back to the home in coastal Maine where Liddie grew up. Her mother, Margreete is suffering from dementia and can no longer safely live on her own. It is where their third child Gretchen is born. A sadness pervades much this story as they struggle to get through the changes in their lives as well as the ordinary things they face as time moves on. The narrative alternates focus on all of the family members and the author does such an amazing job of giving a sense of who they are, what they are going through, sparking a genuine emotional connection.

Margreete’s diminishing mind, a marriage at a crossroads, the children making their way through their own identity issues, questioning their convictions as they see their father stand up for his, trying to decide what is the thing that lights one’s soul - there’s so much here. The social and political events of the times are so well presented as they happen and we see the realistic responses by the family members to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the March on Washington, Martin Luther King’s assassination, the bombing at the Birmingham school, Kennedy’s assassination, the war in Vietnam.

Margreete’s Harbor, as she calls the place where she lives is where they make their home, but it is Margreete herself who provides them harbor in many ways. It is the love they have for her and each other that sustains those fragile ties. Margreete’s presence in their lives and their love and acceptance of her despite the difficulties of living with a person with dementia was so moving. In a way I was reminded of one of my favorite writers, Alice McDermott who writes about ordinary people who have an extraordinary impact on me, as this family did.

I read this with Diane and Esil and I’m happy to say we hit on one that we all loved it.

I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press through Edelweiss. And NetGalley