Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
on March 4, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Nature & the Environment, Fiction / Women
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
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“But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die.”
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old, Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place. Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late, and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.
This book changed me! While it’s extremely character driven, and slow moving at times, it’s also so plot heavy… but, it will be so hard for you to put it down!! Absolutely obsessed with this book and also my heart is breaking. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over this one. McConaghy takes us to an incredibly isolated and haunted place to give us a glimpse of the disastrous effects of global warming and what the future could look like. The scenery, vivid; the fauna, lush; The wildlife, wonderous. She contrasts humanity and its degradation to the beauty of a place where seals, penguins, birds exist in harmony. A story of grief, fear, loss, but also one of hope and strength.
I rated this book at 4.5 stars. I had to drop it a star due to the ending not going the way I wanted it to go, but was still so fantastic. I haven’t read something so tragic, heart-wrenching, and yet so achingly beautiful in a long time. The ending felt like tiny needles piercing my heart. It made me reflect on the wildness of nature, the fragility of species, the instinct to survive, the future of humanity, broken families, grief, pure love, obsession turning into madness, claustrophobia, guilt, sacrifice, and motherhood. And yet, somehow, it also gave me a tiny glimmer of hope—that with the help of those we love, we can still stand up after hitting the deepest, most painful rock bottom.
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