Why leave Manhattan for a town in Maine "where no one goes and nothing ever happens"? Confused, bereft, but following a hunch, Lee Baldwin moves to Limmington Mills to revel in solitude and brood about her missing husband. Life has other plans. While she never forgets Charlie, Lee is pulled into the daily dramas of her flighty landlady Dolly and Dolly's brother, a taciturn welder at Bath Iron Works. Befriended by Maxine, store proprietor (and de facto town manager), she meets a trio of boys running wild and their mother, rumored to have heard a saint speak. Most of all, Lee benefits from Hazel's fierce grace, the elderly woman whose grip on life breathes energy into Lee's own. Through dynamic characters, their complex struggles, and enduring spirits, Preservation evokes the lives of northern New Englanders who struggle in the shadow side of prosperity, and explores intriguing themes of a Maine culture before today's electronic times.