title: Moon Shell Beach: A Novel
author:  Nancy Thayer 
description: Childhood friends Clare Hart and Lexi Laney work toward reconciliation in this bland novel by <i>The Hot Flash Club</i> author. Lexi wants to leave stifling Nantucket, so when wealthy Ed Hardin proposes marriage, Lexi seizes the chance to live a life of off-island luxury. But after 10 years in a lonely and adulterous marriage, Lexi divorces Ed and lands back on the island seeking to repair the relationships she left behind. As Lexi and Clare take steps toward salvaging their friendship, their relationships with menparticularly Lexi's feelings for Clare's fianctest their loyalty. Unfortunately, Thayer's characters are as thin as a worn beach towel, and the phoned-in prose does little to make up for the contrived plot twists that dominate the final act. <i>(June)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  # The Shell Collector
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  by Hugh Howey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  You make the world a better place
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### — Prologue —
  
  
  
  
  
  My earliest memory of the beach is of it being a harsh place for a wheelchair.
  I remember the ruts the rubber tires made, how the sand grabbed and tugged. My
  mom would cuss and struggle and lean against the handles to get Grandma down
  to the sea foam and shells, close enough that she could hear the waves
  crashing. I would try to help, but I mostly got in the way. I remember the
  sweat dripping from my mother’s nose and evaporating off the hot sand while
  Grandma sat wrapped in her blanket. She was always cold toward the end.
  
  
  
  
  
  The shells were hard to find back then, but not impossible like today. Mom
  would tell us stories of what the beach was like in her time, and every now
  and then Grandma would tell us older stories still. Stories of bounty. Of seas
  teeming with fish, beache