Introducing CHESAPEAKE SHORES

The new Hallmark Channel drama Chesapeake Shores, based on the best-selling novels of the same name by Sherryl Woods, will debut on Sunday, August 14 at 9 PM.

The series focuses on a multi-generational family, specifically Abby O’Brien (Meghan Ory from Once Upon a Time and Intelligence), a high-powered career woman, divorcee and mother to twin daughters, who makes a trip from New York City to her hometown of Chesapeake Shores.

Her visit home brings Abby face to face with her past, including her high school sweetheart Trace (Jesse Metcalfe from Desperate Housewives and Dallas), her uncompromising father Mick (Treat Williams from Everwood) and her esteemed grandmother Nell (Diane Ladd from Enlightened and the box office movie Wild at Heart).

During her trip, Abby realizes the toll her career has taken on her ability to be a hands-on mother to her daughters, and considers a permanent move to Chesapeake Shores.

You can watch a trailer for Chesapeake Shores below:

Here are character details for most of the cast (courtesy of the Hallmark Channel):

Abby

Abby O’Brien is a beautiful young woman of Irish-American extraction, who is the divorced mother of 8-year-old twins. The product of a broken home, Abby left Chesapeake Shores at an early age and started the uphill climb to stellar success. Now one of the top financial analysts in a prestigious investment firm, she returns home for a weekend visit to help out her scatter-brained younger sister, whom she has been bailing out of jams since childhood. Once back home, however, Abby begins to assess her situation afresh. Although her life is seemingly “perfect” to outside observers, she is intensely unhappy, tired of the rat-race in which her every move is rigorously planned. She begins to realize that her future may not lie in Manhattan, but in a slower and more family friendly field office nearer to the Shores. Her meeting with Trace, her old love, complicates her emotions considerably, as does her still-fractious relationship with her workaholic father, Mick. It may finally be time for Abby to mend her fences with her family and put the past to rest. At the same time, she may get a chance to revive her long-lost true love.

Trace

Trace Riley is the handsome old love of Abby, a young man who has never forgiven her for abandoning him, without warning, when they were very young. Abby feared that Trace would never leave their hometown, but she underestimated his resolve. After being on the road as a musician, Trace is now home reassessing his life and working as a contractor. He is initially cool towards Abby, but during the course of their interactions, their old attraction for one another is rekindled. When Abby’s planned departure is delayed, the two begin to remember just what they had and lost, but whether they can re-establish their relationship on a solid footing remains to be seen.

Mick

Mick O’Brien is Abby’s dad, an imposing and stubborn self-made man, the kind of person who neither gives nor accepts excuses. Mick is a successful contractor/developer who works long hours, and his workaholism finally caused his wife, Megan, to walk out on him and their family. Still, Mick has no apologies for the past. As far as he’s concerned, he was merely providing for his family the best way he could, and he doesn’t see the toll his emotional unavailability has taken on his adult children. When daughter Abby points out his failings, it’s the beginning of self-knowledge for this old school patriarch, who is finally realizing that he has some burned bridges to rebuild with his family.

Nell

Nell O’Brien is the matriarch of the O’Brien clan. She is warm, maternal and wise. When Megan, her son Mick’s wife, abandoned him with a passel of young kids, Nell moved in and took over the rearing of the O’Brien brood. Throughout the decades, she has been the glue that has kept this fractious, fractured family together. She is all too aware of her loved ones’ weaknesses and mistakes, but she never dictates a course of action for them, allowing them to find their own paths — sometimes later than sooner.

Megan

Megan O’Brien (Barbara Niven from Cedar Cove) is a beautiful woman who fled the responsibilities of her family when her daughter Abby was just 17, leaving her husband Mick to deal with their large brood. Now living in Manhattan and working at a museum, she has a relationship with Abby and her twins, but otherwise has had zero contact with the rest of her family for the last 17 years. When Mick summons her to Chesapeake Shores, it’s certain that old wounds will be reopened, but whether Megan can help heal the damage she has caused is unclear.

Jess

Jess O’Brien (Laci J. Mailey from Falling Skies) is Abby’s youngest sibling, who is a bubbling, energetic young woman who talks a mile a minute and changes jobs more often than most people change shirts. Always in hot water, she has relied on Abby to bail her out over the years, and she summons Abby home for her latest crisis. Jess has just bought a beautiful but dilapidated old inn that she intends to transform into a bed and breakfast. But she’s maxed out her credit and is poised for financial disaster until Abby offers some assistance. Bull-headed and flighty, Jess still insists on spending money she doesn’t have for high-end appliances and fixtures that are sending her into early bankruptcy. She adamantly refuses to accept help from her contractor dad, Mick, but Jess will have to grow up a lot, both personally and professionally, if she hopes to make the inn a success. Meanwhile, she just might have to stop resenting both her parents, whom she bitterly blames for abandoning her when she was still a child.

Bree

Bree O’Brien (Emilie Ullerup from Sanctuary and Arctic Air) is another of Abby’s siblings. She is a charming neurotic who is as flamboyant as she is insecure. A playwright whose first play earned her glowing reviews, Bree hasn’t been able to recreate her early success, which has been largely labeled “beginner’s luck” by the critical establishment. Currently in an unhappy relationship with an egomaniacal theater director, she has also watched her latest play crash and burn. Full of anxiety and faced with a long-running writer’s block, she returns home due to a family illness, but she just may stick around to recharge her mental batteries and find a new direction in her life.

The O’Brien Family

The O’Brien family also includes brothers Kevin (Brendan Penny from Motive), Connor (Andrew Francis from Cedar Cove and the Hallmark Channel movies Ms. Matched and Mr. Miracle) and Kayden and Abbie Magnuson as Carrie and Caityln Winters, the fraternal twin daughters of Abby.

Chesapeake Shores will debut on the Hallmark Channel on Sunday, August 14 at 9 PM.