Summary and Reviews of Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Wild Dark Shore

A Novel

by Charlotte McConaghy
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (15):
  • Readers' Rating (6):
  • First Published:
  • Mar 4, 2025, 320 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

An enthralling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves.

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.

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. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn't telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all 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.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.

Rowan

I have hated my mother for most of my life but it is her face I see as I drown.

* * *

The face I see when I wake from drowning is different. It is rough and wind-bitten and scratchy. It is what I'm looking at when the sudden arrival of pain overcomes me, and I know the image of him will forever be as one with this pain. Whenever I see this face I will remember the burning sting of being dragged upon rocks and flayed open, left raw, I will feel the bursting pressure in my chest; the sensation will be so vivid it will be like it's happening all over again. His face, a return. A drowning.

Fen

She washes in with the storm, draped upon a tangle of driftwood. The girl sees her from among the seals. She picks her way through their fat sleeping bodies and moves to the surging waterline. Rough waves carry the lump closer, in with the tide. A shape of milky white lit by the moon. A shoulder, she thinks. And seaweed for hair. A hand draped delicately over wood.

The girl wades into the ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. The novel's epigraph reads: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead / and the bridge is love, / the only survival, the only meaning." How do you interpret that line? How does it reverberate throughout the novel?
  2. The narration rotates around the perspectives of the main characters. Discuss the different styles and formats those perspectives take, as well as the balance between them. Why do you think the author made those narrative choices? Was there a character you were especially drawn to or moved by, and why?
  3. Discuss Dominic's relationships with his three children. How do they evolve over the course of the novel? What role does Rowan plays in that evolution?
  4. Multiple characters are haunted in ...
Please be aware that this discussion may contain spoilers!

See what our members are saying about this book in our Community Forum.

What audience would you recommend Broken Country to? Is there another book or author you’d recommend that you feel has a similar theme or style?
Those who like a romance if it's part of a mystery with lots of twist and turns! I'm currently reading Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore and would recommend it as being similar. It is an atmospheric, isolated Island murder mystery with a romance buried in that I'm very much enjoying! I would ...
-Jo_S


What are you reading this week? (7/2/2025)
After finishing "Wild Dark Shore" by Charlotte McConaghy, I picked up "Booth" by Karen Joy Fowler. William Kent Krueger's "Ordinary Grace" is waiting to be re-read next (all for our public library's summer reading program for adults).
-Carol_Ann_Robb


Think about your favorite genre. To you, which author is the master of that genre?
My favorite genre is Literary Fiction, and the master for me is Louise Erdrich. My second favorite genre is Climate Fiction, for which Kim Stanley Robinson is master, but Charlotte McConaghy (Wild Dark Shore, Migrations) blends the two genres well.
-Holly_Batsell


What are you reading this week? (4/17/2025)
I am reading and loving. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy and would highly recommend!!
-Laurie_L


What are you reading this week? (3/12/2025)
I've read 'Three Wild Dogs and the Truth' by Markus Zusak, and 'Wild Dark Shore' by Charlotte McConaghy. Very different reading experiences, both the books are very good!
-Evonne_Benedict


What are some books you loved reading in 2024?
...HE SHADOW DOCKET by Steve Vladeck and THE SING SING FILES by Dan Slepian were two informative and important reads. NIGHT SWIMMERS by Roisin Macguire, WILD DARK SHORE by Charlotte McConaghy, and THE DEVIL IS FINE were totally engaging fictional stories. Shout out to my favorite mystery/thriller writer Greg Iles for SOUTHERN MAN. WE WERE...
-Anne_Glasgow


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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Charlotte McConaghy's novel Wild Dark Shore is set on fictional Shearwater Island, located halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. The frigid, wind-swept land is home to thousands of sea mammals and endangered birds, as well as a small research base, a lighthouse, and the world's largest seed bank. Water levels are rising due to global warming, however, and soon the island will disappear beneath the waves. The researchers have evacuated, leaving the caretakers, Dominic Salt and his three children, to pack up the seeds for transport before they, too, will be displaced from the land that has been their home for the past eight years. More than a slow-burn thriller, the novel has a lot to say about grief, in particular how dwelling on one's losses can damage relationships with those we care about. All the characters have experienced profound bereavement of one type or another, and the journey each takes toward healing is the beating heart of the narrative...continued

Full Review Members Only (681 words)

(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).

Media Reviews

BookPage
Thought-provoking and passionately told…Wild Dark Shore asks, what will happen when we risk losing our homes and our neighbors? What will we save and what will we let go of? And how can we start again after the sea takes it all?

Chicago Review of Books
A suspenseful, rushing read, full of short chapters, emotional twists, and a landscape it's all too easy to sink into and live in. Wild Dark Shore is an exceptional book that hands readers a bittersweet helping of sorrow and joy, sounding a clarifying call towards a symbiotic survival that prioritizes our need to do more than simply subsist: to put trust in each other and in the nature that surrounds us.

Marie Claire
Look no further if you're searching for a thriller that reads like top-class literary fiction. Written in sparse, haunting prose, Wild Dark Shore features characters so clearly drawn, you'll feel as if you're stuck on fictional Shearwater Island with them.

New York Times Book Review
Vivid…Moving…Wild Dark Shore abounds with evocative nature writing…We're shown why a person might withdraw from the messiness of life after tragedy and trauma…The novel also offers its injured characters a path back to connection and community, a risk McConaghy argues must be worth taking, no matter how fraught the future.

Reader's Digest
A gripping tale…With a breathtaking setting and characters you'll love, Wild Dark Shore is a suspenseful and moving must-read

Screen Rant
Gripping… A thriller promising a unique premise, complex characters, and an atmospheric setting, Wild Dark Shore is a must-read.

Shelf Awareness
Remarkable…Raising issues of love and family and sacrifice, Wild Dark Shore is a beautiful examination of hope in the face of certain destruction.

The Denver Post
From the first page, McConaghy creates an intriguing maelstrom of uncertainty…McConaghy is a master who ignites both my intellect and emotions. Her characters have great depth and credibility; the wild settings are described with detail and delicacy that make her writing so beautiful. Her passion for nature illuminates her writing. McConaghy's plots are not optimistic, but still somehow they are hopeful, and leave me feeling enriched, satisfied, even inspired.

Town and Country
Charlotte McConaghy, the author of the fantastic Migrations and Once There Were Wolves, delivers yet another page-turner set in the wilderness, making readers grapple with climate change and what you would do to survive.

Washington Post
Spellbinding…Captivating…McConaghy keeps the novel moving at a blustery pace, thanks to her deft plotting and shared point of view…To read this exceptionally imagined, thoroughly humane novel feels like following the last people on Earth as they prepare to leave some part of their souls to the most beautiful place they'll ever know.

Booklist (starred review)
Riveting… McConaghy's descriptions of nature's glory and terror are galvanic, the psychological struggles wrenching, the suspenseful action spectacularly choreographed. McConaghy has attained new heights of intensity and lacerating ecological conviction in this complexly plotted, tragic, and all-consuming tale of the battle to survive.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
[A] terrific thriller…McConaghy keeps readers guessing…McConaghy writes about both nature and human frailty with eloquent generosity. Readers won't want to leave behind the imagined world of pain and beauty that McConaghy has conjured.

Library Journal (starred review)
Sub-Antarctic noir meets a love letter to the rapidly disappearing wild world in McConaghy's latest…As lush as it is taut with tension, this novel is filled with both the joys and ravages of nature.

Publishers Weekly
Urgent…McConaghy ratchets up the tension as the characters' paranoia and mutual suspicion increases and their motives are revealed…McConaghy blends entertainment with a sobering message about conservation and the impacts of geographic isolation.

Author Blurb Hannah Kent, international bestselling author of Burial Rites
At once a gripping mystery, an exquisitely written ode to the natural world, and a taut, psychological thriller, Wild Dark Shore is a triumph. Charlotte McConaghy is masterful in her ability to show the intricate connections between place and the human heart, and Wild Dark Shore shows her at the height of her powers. Breathtaking.

Reader Reviews

Labmom55

Haunting mystery
With Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy has once again crafted a haunting mystery based on climate change. A family of four are the final inhabitants on an island in the Southern Ocean, near to Antarctica. Even they are due to leave, once ...   Read More
Bonnie G

A perfect novel
All the stars. Charlotte McConaghy has written the perfect novel. She has created a beautiful and frightening elegy to our world in all its disarray and disorder and also done wonders to celebrate the unbreakable bonds between parent and children.
Cloggie Downunder

A gripping, thought-provoking read.
“All we need to do is keep our mouths shut.” Wild Dark Shore is the third stand-alone adult novel by Australian author, Charlotte McConaghy. When the woman washes up on the shore of Sheerwater Island, the first priority for the Salt family is to ...   Read More
Becky

Love and trust
I am happy to say that this is the first book I’ve read by Charlotte McConnaghy, and am excited to know there are more novels by the same author out there that I will need to read! As an atmospheric work of speculative eco-fiction, this book ...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



The Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Photograph showing entrance to Svalbard Global Seed VaultA main character in Charlotte McConaghy's novel Wild Dark Shore is employed as a caretaker for an isolated seed bank. The author has stated that the facility is based on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located on the remote Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.

A seed bank's main purpose is to safeguard the planet's food supply, creating a repository that could be turned to should a disaster wipe out humanity's crops. It's believed that a well-preserved seed can stay viable for centuries. According to a 2022 article in The Guardian, there are approximately 1,700 seed banks around the world.

The first seed bank was created in St. Petersburg in the 1920s by Russian ...

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Read-Alikes

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