Come Shell or High Water

From Molly MacRae,acclaimed author of the Highland Bookshop Mysteriesthe first in a charming new series set on a beautiful barrier island off the coast of North Carolina and featuring a widowed folklorista seashell shopand the ghost of an 18th century pirate… As a professional storytellerMaureen Nash can’t help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shella shop on Ocracoke Islandoff the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectorsbut it’s the cryptic letters from Allen Withrowthe shop’s ownerthat convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very leastshe expects she’ll get a good story out of the experiencenever anticipating it could end up a murder mystery . . . In Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed islandshe averts several life-threatening accidentsstumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke localand meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirateEmrys Lloyd. To the untrained eyeall these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunesbut Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistanceand the support of a few new friendsMaureen sets out unravel the truthfind a killerand hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own.