Shell Seekers (Pilcher)

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Shell Seekers:

1. How would you describe Penelope Keeling as a character? What traits you would you ascribe to her? Maeve Binchy has said that Penelope's ordinariness is what makes her character so likable...and also what gives her strength. Is she ordinary, and if so, is Binchy correct?

2. What makes Noel and Nancy so unlikable? (Honestly, does Nancy have to be overweight?) Does Pilcher develop them fully as emotionally complex characters ... or as shallow, one-dimensional characters?

3. What about Olivia? Is she too good to be true? She clearly has her mother's favor: how might this affect the behavior of Noel and Nancy? Why doesn't Penelope tell Olivia about Richard? Do you wish she had?

4. Talk about the incident of the red dress. What was your reaction when it was found in the closet?

5. How did Penelope's own upbringing, by her Bohemian artist parents, prepare her—or not—for her later life? What values and ideals did she take away from her growing-up years?

6. How does the prospect of an inheritance affect family dynamics, both in this story and in life? Is Pilcher's account of Penelope's family realistic?

7. What does Penelope learn as she journeys, literally and figurativelly, back into her past? How does it change her?

8. Talk about the book's World War II years. In what way does Pilcher bring that era alive?

9. What is the symbolic significance of the novel's title and its reference to the Shell Seekers painting?

10. Why does Penelope want to keep The Shell Seekers? What does it mean to her? Were you held in suspense wondering how Penelope would eventually dispense with the painting? Where you satisfied with the outcome?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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