This was a fun cozy. Maureen is at loose ends. Recently widowed, she isn't quite sure what to do with herself. She remembers fun family vacations in Ocracoke Island, North Carolina which is a barrier island. She found some letters from a proprietor of a shell shop on the island addressed to her husband. Maureen loves shells and decides why not? She arrives on the island just after a hurricane. She is renting a very small house. She decides to stretch her legs and go to the beach. While at the beach she finds a rare shells with writing/painting on it. She also finds a dead body. She wakes up in the shell shop. Soon she is plunged into finding the true murderer. She meets quirky residents as well as a ghost who lives in the shell she found.

The story is entertaining and kept my attention. It provides a nice escape.

This was the first cozy mystery that I've read by this author but it won't be the last. If you enjoy cozies with a touch of paranormal then this one is for you. In this case, the paranormal character is the ghost of a pirate who was killed long ago. The main character, Maureen, has the fascinating job as a professional story teller. It's unclear whether or not she will be using particular skill set throughout the series but it does seem interesting. She does however have the knack of solving murders! I loved the Outer Banks setting and there are other characters that keep the story flowing. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series.

A cozy mystery with a splash of seaside charm, and a great beginning to a new series. The plot is clever with a bit of humor.. Some of the plot twists are a bit predictable but still engaging. I loved the characters , especially the elderly siblings.
Many thanks to Kensington and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I have always enjoyed this authors books. Characters were interesting. I liked the setting but I found the start hard to follow.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Princess Fuzzypants here: When Maureen is dropped off on Ocracoke Island by her park ranger friend immediately after a hurricane swept through, she probably thought the drama was behind her. The widow has come to the island to find answers to cryptic letters she and her late husband have received from Allen. The mysteries have only just begun when she literally stumbles over Allen’s corpse and then wakes up, confused and disorientated, in his shell shop. She has no idea how she got there and neither do the elderly couple, Glady and Burt. Ghost Emrys whom only she seems to see might have some answers. That is if his very existence does not make Maureen wonder what is real and what is fantasy.

I was hooked from the get-go by the fascinating and quirky characters who will keep you guessing as to who did what to whom. The story that weaves back and forth over almost three centuries is held together by a special shell. Maureen and Emrys form a friendship that will allow them to solve the murders and perhaps begin to answer why Emrys has been trapped in this ghostly plane for so long and what was the secret Allen wanted to share with her husband.. It is the first of a new series and I am looking forward to seeing where life- and death- leads our two heroes. Five purrs and two paws up.

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Come Shell or High Water is the first book in a new light paranormal cozy shopfront mystery series by Molly MacRae. Released 25th June 2024 by Kensingon on their cozy imprint, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.

The author is prolific and experienced especially with the genre. This is a nicely written, entertaining, and engaging series starter with a light paranormal twist set in the Outer Banks. The MC is a widowed folklorist and former malacologist (invertebrate snail/shell expert), hence the seashells. Arriving during hurricane season, she's trips over a body, almost gets drowned, and meets the ghost of a pirate.

Being firmly cozy, there are eccentric and quirky characters aplenty. The book starts with a chaotic and crisis filled opening (MC Maureen is very nearly drowned), and an abundance of characters to start with, but for readers who bear with the chaos, it soon resolves into a fun and readable story.

The unabridged audiobook format has a run time of 10 hours 26 minutes and is capably read by Callie Beaulieu. She has a well modulated alto voice and delineates the characters clearly, and manages to make the often rapid fire dialogue understandable in context. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read.

Four stars. It's a promising start to a new paranormal cozy series. It would be a good choice for public library acquisition, home use, or a buddy read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I love that our protagonists, Maureen Nash, is a former biologist! Such a fun perk. This was such a whimsical, para-cozy mystery. Even though there wasn't as much haunting as I expected, I loved the humor. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a fun cozy and some laughs!

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie

I looked forward to this opening mystery of its new series since I first heard about it. Happily, it exceeded my expectations in the kind of wonderful way that will keep me eagerly looking for the next one. The author delighted this appreciative reader and armchair traveler with descriptions of Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks.

Maureen had driven to Hatteras Landing to take the ferry to Ocracoke. Hurricane Electra was leaving the area, continuing to dump heavy rains and strong winds that shut down the ferry. She ran into Patricia, a local National Park ranger and a good friend from their college days. Against policy, Patricia gave Maureen a hair-raising ride to Ocracoke in her park service boat and later, a ride to the tiny rental she would live in for the next three weeks.

Maureen’s destination is Moon Shell, to meet the owner, Allen Withrow. He sells collectible and costly shells from the quaint old shop. She has fond memories of visiting it when she, her late husband, and their sons spent several summer vacations on Ocracoke almost fifteen years ago. When the rain had almost stopped, Maureen walked to the nearby beach before going to Moon Shell.

At the beach, Maureen saw a huge, amazing shell in the water that she struggled to capture and take with her. Scenes had been hand-carved into it, and she wondered how the rare find ended up in the ocean. Within a short time after leaving the beach through a wooded area, she tripped over something – a man with a knife sticking out of his chest! She ran. A short time later, she awoke inside a building without her shoes or socks. She heard voices that she didn’t recognize, and the people speaking didn’t know who she was or if she was alive.

Glady and Burt, elderly yet active siblings, lived across the street from Moon Shell. They were close friends with Allen. What little she remembered was that she ran through another downpour toward Moon Shell, clutching that huge shell, wanting a safe place in case the killer was nearby. She got an electrical shock when, unable to see the water on the floor due to the darkness, she tried to turn on a lamp. Glady and Burt had run there after seeing the light flash inside to find Maureen lying on the floor. They thought she was someone Allen was expecting to arrive and help him at the shop. As readers, we don’t know why Maureen is there until later in the story.

They contacted Deputy Frank Brown before going back out with Maureen to find the man she tripped over. When Maureen, Glady, and Burt found the man, he was lying face down. Deputy Brown arrived, turned the man over, and said that the dead man was Allen. He had a deep wound in his chest, the knife was gone, and the back of his head had been hit hard. Deputy Brown quickly determined Maureen to be his prime suspect.

Maureen had to recover from the electric shock and the horror of having tripped over a dead body. Then later in the shop, she met Emrys Lloyd, a ghost from the 18th century. Maureen never believed in ghosts before. Now, as she searches for a killer to save her own skin, one of those she relies on for help has a flickering wardrobe, including a tri-corn hat and knee breeches, but no skin or bones. As she, Glady and Burt became friends, Maureen certainly couldn’t tell them about Emrys…

This is Molly MacRae at her finest. With excellently described, primarily middle-aged or older characters in this fabulous mystery, she has offered a cozy mystery that is a compelling, suspenseful read. There are twists and turns that surprised, delighted, and even frightened this reader at times, and a bad guy I never anticipated. I highly recommend this first of what I hope is the beginning of a long running new series. And where else would we find three recipes for Burt’s tasty muffins?

A great start to a new series! Wonderful characters in an incredible setting. This book will keep you guessing until the end.

Molly MacRae’s Come Shell or High Water is a captivating read set on the picturesque yet stormy Ocracoke Island. From the moment Maureen arrives, the novel plunges readers into a whirlwind of excitement and intrigue. She narrowly escapes a series of harrowing accidents, discovers the body of a local person with a mysterious link to her late husband, and encounters Emrys Lloyd, the ghost of an eighteenth-century pirate. MacRae masterfully blends suspense, charm, and a touch of the supernatural to create a story that is both thrilling and heartwarming. (I reviewed an advance reader copy and all opinions are my own.) The island setting adds a unique, atmospheric backdrop, making this book a must-read for fans of cozy mysteries and ghostly adventures.

Maureen Nash finds some letters addressed to her late husband from someone she doesn't recognize. The letters have her traveling to a shop called Moon Shell on Ocracoke Island which is off the coast of North Carolina. The letters were quite cryptic and from a man named Allen Winthrow who owns the Moon Shell shop. Her trip doesn't start out well especially after finding the body of one of the locals. She is intrigued from the start and knows she wants to dig into just what is going on. Who killed this man she found and why are her first questions. Follow along and see where the clues take her will she get what she came for in the end?

I know I'm late at the party but a series of accidents and a wrong date on my diary made me being a bit late
I loved Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Series as it was an excellent mix of paranormal and cozy mystery and loved Highland Bookshop series as it was a lot of fun.
I had high expectations in this new series as there's a paranormal, a lot of secrets and mysteries, and it's set on a island.
I wasn't disappointed as Ms McRea did her magic again delivering a story that introduce us to a ghost related to a shell, a murder, and a woman who must understand why a shell collector and shop owner got in touch with her former husband.
I have to admit I was a bit confused at the beginning but I wasn't able to put it down as more twists, secrets and details were revelead and I was having fun with Maureen, Emrys, Burt and Gladys.
An excellent closed circle mystery set on an island, a murder during a storm that made impossible to leave or reach the island.
Have fun and read it, I can't wait to read the next story.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Kensington Cozies for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Holly MacRae has started the Haunted Shell Shop mysteries with Come Shell or High Water. Maureen Nash is a widow with sons who inherits a shop on an island off North Carolina. When she arrives in a storm she stumbles over a corpse and looses her immediate memory. As she remembers, she finds evidence for many suspects and a missing treasure from the pirate age or more current. The mysterious shell she finds is a relic of the shop bequeathed to her and also the anchor for Emrys, a pirate ghost of the eighteenth century, who haunts the shop. Read and enjoy this ghostly cozy.

I mostly enjoyed this book. It’s different from the usually cozy mysteries. I found the first half slow as there’s really not any investigating going on. The killer reveal is completely out of the blue. I also found all the shell puns annoying. #ComeShellorHighWater #NetGalley

Dollycas's Thoughts

In this first Haunted Shell Shop Mystery, former biologist and professional storyteller Maureen Nash has come to Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, to learn why a man from there sent her late husband a bunch of letters. She had traveled to the island with him and their family several times years ago but has no clue why anyone from the island would be contacting him now. Hurricane season is not the best time to travel to the island. Hurricane Electra had just passed through the area, but she needed answers. If nothing else she may get a story to tell about her mysterious adventure.

Her arrival goes seriously awry when she finds herself on the floor semi-conscious hearing two people discussing her and her car. The word "DEAD" comes out of her mouth more forcefully than intended and she remembers where she was before ending up on the floor. Maureen had stumbled over a dead body and she thinks she remembers where. Being the newcomer on the island she is Deputy Brown's prime suspect but she is still confused by the other voice she keeps hearing, which she will come to find out is the ghost of Emrys Lloyd, an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate. A ghost who knew the deceased very well. Can her new friends help her find a killer and get the local police off her back? or will her story come to a violent end?

_____

Maureen Nash loves seashells of every variety so Ocracoke Island would have been wonderful without the dead body. She is trying to figure out how to live life without her husband by her side. She has two grown sons, Kelly and O'Connor. They are both worried about their mom now that she is a murder suspect and stay in constant touch with her. She does her best to reassure them. Maureen meets Burt and Gladys Weaver when they find her in The Moon Shell unconscious sans her shoes and socks. The elderly siblings are a hoot and quickly attach themselves to Maureen. She is not totally honest with them but they really don't let her get a word in edgewise. She heard another voice as she was waking up and soon realizes it is a ghost that only she can see and hear. They form a unique friendship. Ms. MacRae's characters easily drew me into this story.

Maureen has rented a cute compact house on the island. "Like a jigsaw puzzle all the basics and a few extras" fit together in the place. The "mousehole" is perfect for one person. The author's descriptions made it very easy to visualize. She aptly described The Moon Shell shop too from its porch to the office to the shelves and other nooks and crannies. The island is like a typical small town where the gossip flies but I do believe there are more quirky characters than typically found in most small towns.

Ms. MacRae has written a very entertaining and interesting mystery that stretched my imagination in places. It is filled with a plethora of twists, turns, secrets, lies, and misdirection.  The showdown was crazy good with a very unexpected character coming through in the end. A lot happens within these pages and I didn't have the guilty party pegged until they were revealed.

With an appealing mature protagonist, some curious supporting characters, a unique setting, and an intriguing mystery laced with plenty of humor Come Shell or High Water is an enjoyable lighthearted cozy ghost mystery. I am interested to see what Ms. MacRae has planned for these characters next.

I love cozy mysteries and I especially love cozy mysteries with a paranormal theme so I was eager to read “Come Shell or High Water” the first book in Molly MacRae’s Haunted Shell Shop Mystery series. Truthfully, it took me a few chapters to get into this one – MacRae takes her time with the setup, slowly revealing details about main character Maureen Nash and other characters to the readers. I liked Maureen as a main character – still recovering from the loss of her husband, she sets out to Ocracoke Island to try and solve the mystery of cryptic letters sent to her husband only to find herself involved in a murder mystery. I also love the ghost in the story – Welsh pirate Emrys Lloyd – he not only adds a great touch of humor to the mystery but is very useful in helping solving the mystery. Rounding out the characters are brother and sister team Glady and Burt – they are great characters but, like every other character in the book including Maureen, they are keeping secrets that had me wondering if they could be trusted. I also liked the Shell Shop Setting – like everything else in the book, the details of the shop are slowly revealed to readers. The mystery was well done with quite a few surprises and just the right amount of suspects – the part where all was revealed was quite well done and suspenseful. In the end, while I thought the pace of the book was a bit slow, I was caught up in and involved with the characters and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley.

Interesting premise based on the synopsis but from the get-go, we’re thrown into a story that is very confusing. I get that Maureen is also confused but it makes for a quick jump into the first of a series with nothing established so you’re floundering trying to figure things out, and not in a good way; so many characters and scenes are introduced that it’s hard to get your bearings. Then the writing style was strange. I’m not sure how to describe it but maybe the short sentences make it seem clipped and this adds to the difficulty in connecting with the characters and the book on the whole. Sometimes a reader is just not compatible with the author and I think that might be the case with this one. I don’t think I will continue with this series.

Widowed folklorist Maureen Nash is a woman on a mission. Having persuaded a ranger friend to transport her across choppy waters still affected by hurricane season, she’s landed on North Carolina’s Ocracoke Island in search of answers.

Alas that it’s mostly alarming questions that she finds instead, beginning with the identity of the dead body she ran away from in terror before being woken up in a strange place by even stranger people. The latter introduce themselves as Glady and Burt Weaver, the neighbors who live in the home next door to the shop Maureen had originally come to visit. Well, not the shop specifically, but its owner Allen Withrow. Over the past few years, Allen had written several cryptic letters to Maureen’s late husband. A still-grieving Maureen has only just found the time and strength to come east from her home in Tennessee to ask him about them. But there are alarming gaps in her memory now, between landing on Ocracoke and waking in the Moon Shell store, gaps she’ll have to fill if she has any hope of uncovering the meaning of Allen’s strange missives.

She’s somewhat distracted in her quest by Allen’s shop, and especially by the gorgeous carved shell that once had pride of place in it. Being a malacologist – a scientist specializing in mussels and their shells – in addition to a folklorist, Maureen greatly appreciates not only the rarity of the shell specimen but also the artistry of its carving. Even more uniquely, the shell is haunted by the ghost of a long-dead pirate whom only Maureen can see.

The phantom Emrys Lloyd is eager to help Maureen not only regain her memory but also to solve the mystery of the letters. She’ll need all the help she can get, since Allen has gone missing. But as more strange things begin to befall the island, Maureen will have to figure out who in Ocracoke’s small community is willing to resort to murder and why, before she becomes the next victim herself.

The first book in Molly MacRae’s latest cozy mystery series is populated with charming, eccentric characters. The elderly Weaver siblings are a hoot, and I loved Maureen’s relationship with her adult children. The amnesia narrative is written in a manner as disorienting as the experience itself, but everything comes together satisfactorily in the end. Honestly, it’s so refreshing to read of older characters tackling tough and often dangerous problems. The inclusion of a friendly ghost also adds a delightful touch of the paranormal.

There were three muffin recipes included here and I decided to try out this one:

QUOTE
Banana Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins
Yield: 12

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 ½ cups mashed ripe banana (two or three bananas, depending on their size)
⅔ cup brown sugar
⅔ cup unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Butter 12 muffin cups or line with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in chocolate chips.

In a medium bowl, melt the butter, then whisk in the mashed banana, sugar, egg, and vanilla until well combined. Add to the large bowl and fold until combined but not over-mixed.

Divide batter evenly between muffin cups. Sprinkle tops with the chopped walnuts.

Bake until tops are golden brown or a toothpick or tester comes out clean, 15-20 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack before removing from pan.
END QUOTE

I skipped the walnuts, but otherwise baked this exactly as described. I did find that I wound up with enough batter for eighteen muffins instead of twelve, but that is definitely not a complaint at all. I love the buttery flavor of these muffins, and am seriously thinking of using this recipe the next time I have a bunch of overripe bananas to use. I might change it up a little and see if I can adapt the yummy flavors of this recipe into loaf form for a banana chocolate chip bread though: I can’t imagine it would be any less delicious than these muffins!

Next week, we head north to whip up a very different kind of muffin while investigating the death of a controversial children’s author. Do join me!

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.

The first in a new mystery series, Come Shell or High Water takes us to a quaint coastal town in North Carolina where the recent murder of a local man spells trouble for recent visitor Maureen Nash who just so happened to literally stumble upon the body when arriving to the island.

Within Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed island, she averts several life-threatening accidents, stumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke local, and meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate, Emrys Lloyd. To the untrained eye, all these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunes, but Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistance, and the support of a few new friends, Maureen sets out unravel the truth, find a killer, and hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own.

While my foray into cozy mystery is still relatively new, I could tell early on that this new mystery series wasn't going to be for me. The main issue was the lack of coziness. All of the locals that Maureen interacted with were all standoffish and suspecting of each other. The author was clearly trying to through the reader off when it came to guessing who the murderer was, but with every character trying to solve the murder and all of them suspecting not only our main character but almost everyone else by creating multiple motives it became a bit bogged down with tension rather than buoyed by coziness.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.