Moon Shell Beach : All About Romance

Moon Shell Beach

Grade : C-

One of my secret fantasies is to live on an island, so I was eager to read Moon Shell Beach set on Nantucket Island. While I enjoyed the descriptions of island life, I couldn’t warm to either heroine (yes, there are two), and can’t recommend the book.

Clare and Lexie were best friends as little girls. While in high school, Clare fell in love with Jesse, the sexiest guy in the senior class, and she and Lexie drifted a bit apart. Clare and Lexie had different dreams for the future and eventually had a huge fight when Lexie announced she was leaving Nantucket to marry a wealthy older man.

Ten years later, things haven’t gone the way either Clare or Lexie planned. Both made lousy decisions in men. Clare is now engaged to Jesse, even though he has cheated on her repeatedly. Lexie has finally divorced her husband and has decided to move back to Nantucket and start a business.

This is women’s fiction, not romance; with the central focus the ebbs and flows of Clare and Lexie’s friendship. I enjoy women’s fiction, but for a book about friendship to work, I have to like the main characters. While Clare and Lexie showed some growth, I felt they acted like adolescents, even in their late 20s, with repeated stupid fights and generally horrible taste in men.

I can’t begin to say how much I disliked Jesse. According to legend, he had sex with half of the girls in high school before graduating. I get that Jesse is gorgeous, but he’s also juvenile, self-centered, and completely unfaithful. As Lexie comments at one point, Jesse “has trouble committing to dinner,” let alone to a meaningful relationship with a woman. Lexie tried to convince Clare that Jesse was no good for her, but then became attracted to him herself. That was a place I just didn’t want the book to go.

I had a lot of trouble assigning a sensuality rating to this book. The sex scenes are an odd mix of purplish prose and clinically described detail; I found them cold and unmoving. Fortunately, they don’t occur very often and are very short.

I could also have done without the story of the precocious little girl who sits at the end of the pier every day waiting for her father, who everyone believes was lost in a shipwreck, to come home. Additionally, I would have enjoyed more positive interactions between Lexie and Clare to demonstrate how they really are friends.

This wasn’t an awful book, but it was a very slow read. I enjoyed the descriptions of the island and the feeling the author conveyed for the differences in life on the island during tourist and off-season, as well as the difference in the lifestyles of the tourists and the locals. However, the book dragged for long parts. While both Clare and Lexie got at least a hint of an HEA, everything was resolved a bit too neatly and far too quickly.

Reviewed by LinnieGayl Kimmel

Grade : C-

Book type : Women's Fiction

Sensuality : Warm

Review Date : September 12, 2009

Published On : 2009

LinnieGayl Kimmel

My first memory is sitting with my mother on a blanket in our backyard surrounded by books and she is reading one of them to me. My love of reading was encouraged by my parents and it continues to today. I’ve gone through a lot of different genres over the years, but I currently primarily read mysteries (historical mysteries are my favorites) and romances (focusing on contemporaries, categories, and steampunk). When I’m not reading or working, I love to travel, knit, and work on various community projects.

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