Wild Dark Shore

Wild Dark Shore by Author Charlotte McConaghy is a hauntingly beautiful love letter to nature as well as a warning to those who habitually abuse her. McConaghy has a gift for lyrical prose that slides through you like a majestic bird gliding on air while delivering a punch to the gut with the power of angry waves crashing on the shore.

Wild Dark Shore is a story about the fight for survival by both humans and nature. It’s a story about family, human nature and impossible choices. There’s an air of imminent danger permeating each page throughout this story, so my advice is to get comfortable before beginning this hypnotic voyage because you won’t feel safe and secure again before finishing. 

Shearwater Island (setting based off of Macquarie Island) is an isolated island near the Arctic Circle and home to the one of the world’s last seed vaults (based on Svalbard Global Seed Vault) and its caretakers, Dominic Salt and his three children – eighteen year old Raff who doesn’t understand or know how to control the rage brewing within him; Fen, seventeen, who prefers spending her nights on the beach among her beloved seals;  and nine-year-old Orly who is obsessed with botany and the wonder of the natural world; and then there’s Dominic, a man riddled with grief and guilt who’s haunted by the ghost of his dead wife and completely at a loss as to how to hold his fractured family together.  With sea levels rising daily, the team of researchers previously working on the island have all gone home, leaving the Salt family the sole occupants. Their mission now is to pack up the precious seeds for transport and be ready when the ship that comes every six months arrives to carry them to a safer place. The enraged sea threatening to swallow the island has other ideas.  

During a terrifying storm, Fen drags a woman’s body from the water and is startled to find her still clinging to life. The family nurses Rowan back to health as they tip toe around one another each guarding dark secrets. Who is the mysterious woman of the sea? Where did she come from? Why is she here? From Rowan’s perspective, who is the Salt family? Why do they live here in isolation? What big secret are they guarding with their lives? For all of them, the biggest question is who smashed all the communications equipment on the island? Cut off from the rest of the world, things quickly escalate, and it becomes a fight for survival. Who will be left standing in the end? 

Author Charlotte McConaghy sweeps readers away to discover one of earth’s remaining wonders in a remote corner of the world, highlighting the dire consequences of climate change through captivating prose that beckons you into a breathtaking story impossible to turn away from. The story is rendered through short past/present chapters via multiple points of view that change with each chapter, allowing readers to feel, if not understand, each character’s emotional turmoil. The short chapters and blunt change of point of view could be confusing, but through the author’s skillful manipulation of story, character and reader, it serves to build the suspense through every twist and turn to a shocking climax. McConaghy’s vivid prose brings the setting to life as another character, portraying all the beauty and wonder of an island that can turn deadly in a heartbeat with both known and unknown threats. The sense of extreme isolation emits claustrophobic, locked room type vibes with no hope of rescue in sight. The pace is driven by an ever-increasing sense of foreboding, a suspicion that all is not as it seems on the tiny island in the middle of nowhere. With a storm brewing both offshore and on, times running out. Who can be trusted with their lives? 

Wild Dark Shore is an epic, highly emotional story of a family and earth in crisis – a rollercoaster ride of feelings – love, loss, regret, guilt, shame, agonizing choices. The author’s extensive, in-person research is evident in every lesson on nature, flawlessly woven into a mysterious, character driven story that’s impossible to put down. The unmeasurable power of love with no limit and the fight for survival have never been portrayed more realistically than in Wild Dark Shore. Author Charlotte McConaghy is a truly gifted writer, and I can’t wait to learn what corner of the globe she takes on next. Highly recommended to fans of mysteries, suspense, and literary fiction.