Book Club Pix - Beach Reads

Contributed by Mary Anne Ellis, Southern History Department, Birmingham Public Library
book jacket Beach Music

by Pat Conroy

Grief-stricken over the suicide of his wife, Jack McCall moves to Rome with his daughter in an attempt to forget the past. For a time he finds peace, working as a travel writer and keeping his distance from his family back in South Carolina; however, he soon finds that life and its tragedies cannot be pushed away so easily. Unable to ignore the pleas of family and friends, McCall finds himself drawn back to his home in a personal quest for truth and healing.
book jacket The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

Brought to a sudden and unwelcome awareness of mortality by a mild heart attack, Penelope Keeling sets out to review her life and put her affairs in order. The review turns up a number of surprises; for one, her father’s works of art, which she had kept for sentimental reasons, turn out to be much sought-after and worth a fortune. However, her three children have different ideas about how this turn of fortune should affect her life—and theirs.
book jacket Riptide

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Lured by legends of an extraordinary treasure, many men have tried to plumb the mysteries of the Water Pit, an elaborate system of tunnels and traps in an island off the New England coast. The prize is one to set any treasure hunter’s heart on fire: some two billion dollars in gold. But there are sinister rumors of another treasure known as the Sword of St. Michael, which can kill anyone who so much as looks upon it. Can Dr. Malin Hatch survive the Water Pit, or will he and his team meet their deaths in the subterranean maze?
book jacket Beach Girls

by Luanne Rice

Stevie Moore, Maddie Kilvert, and Emma Lincoln are "the beach girls": close friends while growing up, they have gone their separate ways as adults. The sudden death of Emma brings fragmented families together when Jack, Emma’s husband, arrives in town with his daughter Nell. Nell reaches out to Stevie—naturally enough, as Stevie is a link to her dead mother—and tries matchmaking with Stevie and Jack, who hesitate to commit to each other. Stevie is a survivor of multiple failed marriages and Jack is still grieving over his wife’s death, but perhaps they are meant for each other after all.
book jacket Jaws

by Peter Benchley

Thirty years ago this summer, the film unexpectedly rose to blockbuster status, packing the theatres with horrified moviegoers who vowed never to swim in the ocean again. Read the novel that started it all—Peter Benchley’s gripping story of a small New England town menaced by a great white shark. But the shark attacks are only half of the story; equally fascinating are the sequences in which Martin Brody, sheriff of Amity, works to protect his town in the face of opposition from local officials who feel that a shark scare would be bad for the town’s summer business. Brody does not consider himself a hero but the character is a compelling example of what can be accomplished by one determined man.