The Shell Collector by Hugh Howey (Author of The Silo Trilogy)

The oceans are dying. The sea is growing warmer and is gradually rising. Seashells have become so rare that collecting them is now a national obsession. Flawless specimens sell like priceless works of art. Families hunt the tideline in the dark of night with flashlights. Crowds gather on beaches at the lowest of tides, hoping to get lucky. Supreme among these collectors is Ness Wilde, CEO of Ocean Oil. Ness owns many of the best beaches, and he keeps them to himself. It's his fault the world turned out this way. And I aim to destroy him. My name is Maya Walsh. You might be familiar with my shelling column in the Times. I was working on a series of pieces about Mr. Wilde, when out of the blue, he called. He says he wants to talk. But I don't think he's going to like what I have to say.​

My fascination with Hugh Howey began with the first novel in his Silo Trilogy, and has not let up with every other piece of writing he has published.  This novel along with another, The Hurricane, are examples of his innate ability to write not only science fiction, or dystopian fiction, but human fiction.  This is a very satisfying novel of love, redemption, and of course the Dystopian promise of "What If..."
Hugh opts to publish through the Amazon platform which makes hard copies of his works difficult to find.  Happily I can report that Amazon has opened their publishing arm to retailers which makes obtaining these titles and the titles of other very good independent authors much easier.

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