Maine Characters

A Novel

By: Hannah Orenstein

Narrated by: Mara Wilson

A May 2025 LibraryReads Pick

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

From beloved author Hannah Orenstein, this love letter to lake life is “the Parent Trap for adults,” the story of two half-sisters who meet for the first time at their father’s cabin in Maine after his unexpected death.

Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house — separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark.

When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents’ pasts. While Lucy is desperate to hold onto the house, Vivian is scrambling after a betrayal. After thirty years apart, is it too late for them to be a family?

For fans of Carley Fortune and Elin Hilderbrand, this sister story set on a lush lake brims with the undeniable heart, depth, charm, and humor that have endeared Hannah Orenstein to legions of readers.

Vanilla

I wanted to love this book. The story was bland, the characters ridiculously predictable.

Sorry I spent an Audible credit on it.

Her best yet

I have followed Hannah Orenstein since her first novel came out. She is an incredibly strong, talented writer in a way that isn’t easy find these days. Maine Characters is my favorite book of Orenstein’s yet. It is a wonderful summer read, a perfect sunshine book. The characters are well developed and realistic. The cast isn’t huge but you don’t notice because everyone is so whole. As someone who read her first book in 2018, it’s so fun to read this one and see how much she’s grown. So good!!

Great narration and character relationship development

I really loved the relationship growth and development between characters. I felt that there was a bit too much predictability in this story, but the narration was great and so was overall tone of the book was heartwarming, tender, and realistic.

Predictable yet enjoyable

3.5 STARS

A somewhat predictable, yet charming story of two half-sisters meeting for the first time after their father’s death. In a way, MAINE CHARACTERS is a bit like an adult version of The Parent Trap without the tween innocence of wondering how everything would turn out.

If you like books where everything falls into place and they all magically lived happily ever after, then MAINE CHARACTERS, double entendres intended, is the book for you. I enjoyed Mara Wilson’s reading, though for a lifelong actress I expected better voice differences between the sisters’ chapters and dialogue between characters.

Characters

No thank you I do not want to write a review I am. done reading please go away I find this most

Annoying