Come Shell or Highwater - A Review

Review

 

COME SHELL OR HIGH WATER by Molly MacRae
The First Haunted Shell Shop Mystery

 

Convincing her friend Park Ranger Patricia Crowley to bring her to Ocracoke Island right after a hurricane may not have been the best decision, but Maureen was eager to get some answers only found on the island. After finding an exquisitely carved shell in the water and literally stumbling across a dead body, Maureen wakes up in the shop with two concerned senior citizens peering at her. Swearing she saw a man in a tricorn hat and hearing a voice no one else can hear Maureen wonders how badly she's been hurt. Unsure of what happened and with gaps in her memory she'll try to piece things together. But on the island who can she trust?

I had such high hopes for this series, shells, an island setting, and a ghost! Instead I found a convoluted storyline and unpleasant characters. The beginning of the story is very confusing with the reader as baffled as Maureen as to what happened to her. She's just arrived, then she wakes up in the Moon Shell shop, then it's back to just after she arrived and she's exploring. She has gaps in her memory, which is fine, but the reader is also clueless as to what's going in. None of the characters are trustworthy, thus difficult to forge a bond with or even like. The little girl is annoying and even Maureen has secrets. She's fairly judgemental too, at least when it comes to pirates. Eventually the confusion began to clear and I was intrigued to discover the various truths. I found the very end quite compelling piquing my interest in reading the next book in the series.

The first book in a new series COME SHELL OR HIGH WATER has seashells, a pirate ghost, and secrets aplenty. There are also delicious sounding recipes for some of the muffins that Burt makes.

Currently Reading...

I'm currently reading Ghost and the Haunted House by Carmen Radtke. This book is the fourth in the Adriana and Genie Darling Mystery series.

As Halloween approaches Cobblewood Cove is seeing an upsurge in pranks, pranks with an occult edge. Does it have something to do with Samantha Bell’s recently opened shop, Bell’s Books and Candles? Eileen and her cronies are quick to blame Jolene who is trying to restore the town’s old speakeasy and make it a new night club, saying she’s bringing evil to the town. When pranks turn into vandalism with Jolene as the target Genie Darling decides to investigate. She and her ghostly Great-Great-Aunt Adriana, along with her cat, Cleo, will try to determine what, exactly, is going on. Things take an even darker turn when murder occurs…in Samantha’s locked store. Surely there’s nothing supernatural going on. But Genie will have to sort out matters quickly, before ghost hunters arrive threatening Adriana’s very existence.

A Murder for the Sages - A Spotlight

Today I'd like to shine a spotlight on a recent release. A Murder for the Sages by Amy Lillard is the third book in the Sunflower Cafe Mystery series and was released last week.

 Blurb:

The unusual death of local herb farmer, Ginger Reed, is the talk of Yoder. Naturally, Sissy is intrigued. The official report classifies Ginger’s demise as an accident, concluding that she ran herself over with a tractor. But Sissy’s cousin, Naomi, a friend and longtime employee of Ginger’s, insists that’s impossible. When she asks for Sissy’s help in unearthing the truth, Sissy’s on the case—accompanied as ever by her loyal Yorkie companion, Duke . . . 

The deeper Sissy digs, the longer the list of suspects grows—and none of them are Ginger. Near the top is Ginger’s resentful sister-in-law, Mallory. Next is Naomi’s brother, Lloyd, who’s bitter about the oil derrick presumably pumping black gold from Ginger’s land—land that once belonged to his family. Naomi herself could be a suspect—it’s her tractor, after all. But the investigation stalls when Naomi makes a shocking turnaround in her story. Is she lying? And if so, why? Then a missing dog, a desperate lawyer, and a teenage con artist are added to the mix, and the puzzle becomes hopelessly complicated. If Sissy doesn’t solve it quickly, she’ll be lost in the weeds as a killer reaps a deadly harvest . . .