Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein

A May 2025 LibraryReads Pick

Named Most Anticipated by Today.com, New York Post, Bustle, PureWow, and BookRiot

What happens when two half-sisters who’ve never met are forced to spend a Maine summer together? Hannah Orenstein delivers a gorgeous, emotionally rich novel that readers are calling “The Parent Trap for adults”—a story about grief, family secrets, and the complicated bonds that tie us together.

Vivian Levy, an ambitious New York City sommelier, and Lucy Webster, a small-town Maine English teacher, have spent their entire lives orbiting the same father—but never each other. Every summer, they took turns at his beloved lake house, carefully kept apart by a man with secrets of his own. When he dies unexpectedly, they finally collide. Vivian arrives to sell the cabin and move on. Lucy’s there waiting for him to return, desperate to preserve the only place that’s ever felt like home.

What unfolds is a summer of revelation and reckoning. As the sisters navigate storms of suspicion and slowly untangle thirty years of family mysteries, they discover that the path to healing might just run through each other.

Perfect for fans of Carley Fortune and Elin Hilderbrand, Maine Characters captures the magic of lakeside summers and the messy, beautiful work of becoming family. Orenstein’s signature warmth and emotional depth shine on every page—this is contemporary women’s fiction at its finest, brimming with heart, humor, and the kind of characters who’ll stay with you long after the last page.

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