Ave is dead to begin with. She is a nineteen-year-old girl, observant of the world, happy with life, and in love with her boyfriend, Nicolas. On a day off from work, she goes on her own for a long hike in a rural setting. The Shore opens on the evening of that day just after Ave has been struck by the limb of a tree while resting on a hillside. Ave does not want to leave the earth or her life. She is young, with the whole world in front of her. She invents stories, an alternative life, to keep her in place. But this alternative life could never be as good as her actual life, no matter that...