Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Published by Flatiron Books
Publication date: March 4, 2025
Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Literary, Mystery
Bookshop
A teenage girl who lives on the beach amidst a colony of seals. Her older brother who plays the violin, loves whales, but has a temper so ferocious he boxes to exhaustion on a punching bag. Her younger brother knows more about the Earth’s plants and biodiversity than most scientists. These are the children of Dominic Salt, the caretaker on Shearwater Island, a remote isle near Antarctica. It’s home to the last seed vault in the world and is the untamed, magnetic setting for Charlotte McConaghy’s new novel, Wild Dark Shore.
What was chosen as the safest space for an underground vault of most of Earth’s seeds is now coming under attack by nature itself. Designed to last even longer than mankind, if need be, its structural integrity has been compromised and the seeds must be moved. When Wild Dark Shore opens the scientists and other personnel have already left the island, only Dom and his family remain. The catalyst is weather so violent it’s breached the vault. The most recent storm—raging seas, pummeling wind, and torrential rain—has knocked out all the island’s power. Yet it’s not enough to force away 16-year-old Fen who, amongst the ferocious waves, spies a body and drags it to shore. Though battered by the ocean and the rocks, it’s a woman and she’s still alive.
The woman is Rowan and Wild Dark Shore walks backwards to recapture her life before she embarked for Shearwater. Her passion project was her land and her home, built every inch by herself, only to be lost to raging wildfires. Emotionally shut down she’s come to the island looking for answers. What she encounters is this unusual family who, while they are tender in their care of her injuries, are closed to inquiries about the island and their situation. Much like Rowan, they are hugging their truth tightly to themselves.
That the Salts have lived on the island almost completely alone for almost a decade and are eerily attuned to each other doesn’t keep McConaghy from excavating their innermost secrets. Their isolation may have bonded them to an extraordinary degree, but she slowly reveals how, even amongst people this close, with all this love, there are still realities that can’t be shared. It’s only as each character narrates their own chapters that what was hidden makes itself known.
McConaghy gracefully balances Wild Dark Shore between descriptions of a tumultuous maximalist environment and the minimalism of a life lived with very little modern technology. Her words are atmospheric as they drench the page with the unmatched power of nature as she reclaims what is hers. There’s as much beauty as pain in her writing and both resonate deeply, the ending making me cry with its shattering poignancy. I was shaken by this wild dark novel.
I’ve come to love McConaghy for her gift with climate fiction. Her last novel Once There Were Wolves is excellent.
This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on a link and make a purchase, I get a small commission (at no cost to you).
*I received a free copy of this book from Flatiron Books in exchange for an honest review.*
Perfection. Couldn’t agree more
Thank you! I loved this book so much.
I agree about Once There Were Wolves, and now look forward to this one. Have you read How to Read a Book, by Monica Wood? It’s terrific!
No, but I’ll take a look!
Damn you already got to this one! Before me. Well I’m glad it’s 5 stars. I have read her two other novels and liked them both. I was particularly taken away by her first novel Migrations. And this one also has the sea and an island … and a storm. Yep I’m on the wait list. The book has skyrocketed since it came out …. like 200 people are on hold for it. You were fast to read & review it. I’m lucky #66!
Thx for the review.
How can you be surprised? A remote island far far far away? I’d move there now if I could! Seriously, I love McConaghy’s writing style so much that she’s an auto-buy for me. And this one? Timely and heart breaking.