Run, don’t walk. This is the first book I’ve read by Charlotte McConaghy, but I know I’m going to read her backlist after this one. First, I haven’t felt so grounded in a setting in a long time. The landscape of the island felt so vivid to me, and the intricate ways the living creatures (animal and human) were tied to it brought the whole thing to life. Second, this was an excellent literary mystery. Solid balance between plot reveals and reflections on everything from grief to parenthood to the climate crisis. I struggled to put it down, but I also really tried to read it slowly because I didn’t want it to be over too quickly. Cannot recommend enough!

Set on an island between Antarctica and Australia, Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is intensely atmospheric and character driven. We meet a man and his children who are frantically trying to complete the task of rescuing precious seeds from a sinking seed vault as the permafrost melts and waters rise on their island. A woman is found unconscious and injured on the rocky shore. This story is hauntingly beautiful and full of secrets. It left me emotionally gutted by the grief and tragedy these characters face, but somehow hopeful. Absolutely stunning.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of Wild Dark Shore, the forthcoming novel from Charlotte McConaghy, who is possibly my favorite novelist working today. I'm so grateful to have had the chance to read this early.

Once again, McConaghy has crafted a wholly original piece of near future climate fiction, this time set on a remote subantarctic island, home to the world's largest seed vault. One small family, the Salts, has been tasked with caring for the vault and the island -- but the island is sinking, and their time before evacuation is limited. Then, a woman washes up on shore. This is where our story begins.

I adored all members of the Salt family, especially Fen and Orly, and I'm so glad we got to hear their voices in alternating POV chapters. It's hard to imagine what a childhood on a wild, remote island would do to a person, but McConaghy writes it beautifully, plausibly, hopefully, and heartbreakingly.

This book is a love letter to our natural world and to family (human & animal & earth), a mystery, and a love story. I read it straight through in one day, and I know I'll be back to revisit Shearwater again.

This is absolutely gorgeous and heartbreaking. I cried multiple times. McConaghy writes with so much vivid detail that you can almost see the ocean and feel the pain of the Salt family.