Hi, Maureen Nash, here. Sorry, but I’m a little distracted. I told you about a day in my life, back in September, before I knew I’d be relocating to Ocracoke. Ocracoke is a small island off the coast of North Carolina where my late husband, Jeff, inherited the Moon Shell, a terrific shell shop. The inheritance was totally unexpected and not just a little suspicious. Of course, with Jeff gone, the shop and the suspicion came to me.

But you might have heard about that so I thought you’d like to hear from Emrys Lloyd this time. Not that I’m not interesting, but what woman in her fifties, even if she’s a storyteller and studies freshwater mussels, can compete with the ghost of an 18th-century pirate? A pirate who has a beautiful tenor, carves (or did when he was alive), had a sideline in forgery, and enjoys reading the obituaries in The New York Times? A day in his life would be, as he says, extramundane. Extramundane (I had to look it up) refers to something in, or relating to, a region beyond our material world or universe. In other words, Emrys.

Small problem. Emrys is missing.

I just got back to Ocracoke after getting a letter from him. A letter from a ghost—talk about extramundane. He’d discovered what he called “treasure” in the Moon Shell’s sealed-off attic and asked me to return to the island as soon as possible. The next day I loaded up the car and drove the day-a-and-half to get here. I’d pictured having at least a day or two to ease into running the shop. That didn’t happen and now, in addition to the new town-, new job-, new-everything-jitters, there’s my growing worry over Emrys.

He haunts the shop. But, like a living person, he isn’t always available. Fair enough. So I waited, expecting him to reappear at some point. He hasn’t. And then I remembered seeing Irving Allred at the ferry dock when I arrived. Allred hasn’t ever seen a ghost but would love nothing better than to catch and study one. So far he only suspects that Emrys exists, but what if Allred managed to trap him?

There’s something else to worry about. When I got back here Glady Weaver, who’d been looking after the shop, told me there was an envelope addressed to Rob Tate in the office, that he’d be over to pick it up. Tate’s a nice guy, a good policeman. But his face when he opened and read the note, and his voice when he asked me if the note was my idea of a joke—icy.

“Read it but don’t touch it.” He held the note up. I read the single line, The dead woman is Lenrose, and then the signature, Maureen Nash. That was my handwriting, and that was my signature. My day was suddenly extramundane.

There’ll Be Shell to Pay – A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery, Book 2
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: June 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

When she’s not selling seashells by the North Carolina seashore from her shell shop, Maureen Nash is a crime-solving sleuth with a ghost pirate for a supernatural sidekick . . .

Maureen is still getting used to life on Ocracoke Island, learning how to play the “shell game” of her business—and ghost whispering with the spirit of Emrys Lloyd, the eighteenth-century Welsh pirate who haunts her shop, The Moon Shell. The spectral buccaneer has unburied a treasure hidden in the shop’s attic that turns out to be antique shell art stolen from Maureen’s late husband’s family years ago.

Victor “Shelly” Sullivan and his wife Lenrose visit the shop and specifically inquire about these rare items. Not only is it suspicious that this shell collector should arrive around the time Maureen found the art, but Emrys insists that Sullivan’s wife is an imposter because Lenrose is dead. A woman’s corpse the police have been unable to identify was discovered by the Fig Ladies, a group who formed an online fig appreciation society. They’re meeting on Ocracoke for the first time in person and count Lenrose among their number, so the woman can’t possibly be dead.

But Lenrose’s behavior doesn’t quite match the person the Fig Ladies interacted with online. Now, Maureen and Emrys—with assistance from the Fig Ladies—must prove the real Lenrose is dead and unmask her mysterious pretender before a desperate murderer strikes again . . .

About the author
The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She writes the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. MacRae’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction.