3.25 stars

Wild Dark Shore is set on the island of Shearwater, in a world in the grips of an ecological dystopia. Shearwater, home to the world's largest seed bank, used to be full of researchers, before rising sea levels sent them all home before the island is lost. Dominic Salt and his three children are the only ones left to care for the seeds and island's fauna as they await transportation for the contents of the seed bank. The impending collapse and fear of what's to come, paired with grief of their late mother/wife, is pushing the Salts to the brink as isolation sets in. Their routine is torn apart when a woman washes up on shore during a storm, meaning she only could have been travelling towards Shearwater, and Dominic needs to figure out why.

The overall mood and atmosphere of Wild Dark Shore is gritty and FANTASTIC. I love how the island almost feels like another character because of the way the Salts connect to it and how it leads the story. I think this book is so clever because it introduces a mystery almost as a distraction because, big picture, the ending of this story is inevitable and much larger than a handful of people. I think it does a great job of putting into context how human nature drives us to be interested in other people despite whatever else is going on, and the way the mind welcomes distractions in times of hopelessness. I've read a couple of other ecological creeping-on-dystopians and Wild Dark Shore nails the mood I need from this niche. The mystery of the island's new arrival and how she weaves into the lives of the Salts was pretty compelling and I got a couple good surprises which are always welcome. I liked how the author left gaps for characters who weren't actually in the book, making the present cast grow into them and fill in the blanks essentially.

My biggest irk with this book is the predictable and completely unnecessary romance plot. It felt like it was the easiest way for the author to force a connection in order to increase tension, and it was poorly done in my opinion. It's almost like two adults can't be connected enough to experience trust, betrayal, fondness and a whole array of human experiences without having sex? Wild. I think those two characters could've been explored and developed in a dozen more satisfying ways. Also HATED the way Dominic thought about the woman in this book. Again, there's no indication that the reader isn't supposed to like him but he immediately and consistently objectifies her for literally no reason but to prove he's isolated and hard up??? literally so many more important things going on. I *think* I see the concept but the execution is just creepy.

On a remote sub-Antarctic island hosting one of the world's seed vaults, a woman washes up on shore. She is rescued by a family of four - a man and his three children who remain on the island after the research base is abandoned.

There is no radio to the outside world.

There are dark secrets.

And she is alone with these people as the seas begin to rise and swallow the island.

==

This was a rollercoaster of a book, that started with a bang and kept a fast pace throughout. Narrated by each of the five characters Rowan (the woman who washes ashore), Dominic (the father) and Raff, Fen and Orly (his children) we slowly learn the secrets and mysteries behind Shearwater Island - from the dark past of penguin hunting to the ghosts in the wind and the desperate attempt to save the seed vault from the rising sea levels. And as the stories unfold we also learn why and how each of these people have become stranded on this remote island at the end of the earth.

But as well as a story of ghosts and madness and paranoia, it is a story of love and redemption, and the lengths a father will go to save his children. To save the world.

Utterly powerful and gripping from the first page to the last gasp, this was an incredible read!

I also tandem read this alongside the audiobook (through Libby), narrated by Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, Steve West. These narrators brought so much warmth and depth to the story, and their pacing was spot on. Between the author's words and their performances, this book brought me to tears.

~This is a NetGalley book. All opinions are my own~

I cried, I gasped. I smiled, I felt all the emotions. First time reading the works of this author. Hooked, absolutely wonderfully hooked.

A family has lived on the island of Shearwater for years, harmoniously, until a woman washes up on the shore during a storm.
That's it, that's all I am telling you......
READ IT
You will have zero regrets

My 6P review: Premise, Plot, People, Place, Prose/Pace, Praise

A remote island, a rising storm, the appearance of a mysterious woman and the Salt family who look after the lighthouse and the final residents of Shearwater Island.

How do I rate this book?

The first three quarters I was bored and often skim reading. It was only the last 20% where the tempo picked up and I was actually reading.

It definitely had a sense of place. It was desolate, isolated, cold, wet. Definitely a remote island with wonderful sea life.

Told from each character’s perspective, I found it tedious. I like Orly, but his narrative of each seed was like reading an encyclopaedia.

What was the theme of this book? Doomsday? Romance (although how that came about was unbelievable)? Family, loss, relationships? Oh and maybe throw in a little mystery as well. How did Roman make it to the island in the first place?

What was with the characters names? Awful and gender neutral.

I’m not sure I understand all the hype with this book, maybe it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Score 60/150=0.4

There is something about literature set in and around Tasmania that sits in a different part of our souls. It is desolate, yet beautiful and the hope that the characters feel is founded on barren soil and biting winds. It is a modern gothic.

Dom and his three children are keepers of the non-working lighthouse on an island off Tasmania's coast. They are also the keepers of a seed vault that, up until recently, has been looked after by a group of scientists.

But now the scientists are gone, and a storm has taken out all the power and communications.

Then a body - alive - turns up on the shore.

What secrets are Dom and his family hiding and who is this stranger?

Fabulous in every way.

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

This is fiction at its best. The writing is just mesmerizingly beautiful. The setting, an island somewhere between Australia and Antartica, is isolated, harsh and haunting, but home to some breathtaking animal colonies. The island is also home to the largest seed bank and a research facility. But now, with rising sea levels, the island is sinking, and all of the researchers have left. The caretakers are left to pack up the seeds so they can be moved to a safer location.

The story is told in multiple POVs, one for each of the main characters, a father and his three children, the caretakers of the island, and a mysterious woman who washes ashore during a storm. Through each of their narratives we are pulled into and gripped by their stories, their grief, their trauma, and ultimately their resilience and survival.

The mystery and suspense unfold, layer by layer, as we become spectators in a terrifying unveiling of what has happened on the island.

This book is so unique as it blends multiple genres, literary fiction, thriller, family drama, even romance.

I loved it so much that I bought a physical copy for my shelf as soon as I finished it on NetGalley. This will be one of my favourite reads of the year.
I urge you all to read this book. You can thank me later.

Tense, atmospheric, twisty, mysterious, scenic, beautiful

Well written
Strong female characters
Isolated and vividly written setting

Based on a mishmash of Macquarie Island and the Svalbard Seed Bank with a sprinkling of the NSW bushfires and some climate change emergency a la Emmerich's 2012 this novel is gripping and gorgeous and I am absolutely passing on to all my friends and family.

Equal parts mystifying and sad, it opens with a woman washing up on the shore of an island halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. How did she get there and what is she doing there when the only inhabitants are the caretaker and his 3 children?
The caretaker is fighting his own battles, having been isolated on the island for 9 years - now radio contact with the outside world has ceased and a strange woman has washed up on shore and is disrupting their idyllic life. But how idyllic is their life really on Shearwater? What dangers lurk on the island with them?

Wild Dark Shore is another fascinating, thought-provoking book from Aussie author, Charlotte McConaghy. She is brilliant at describing the locations her books are set in. You really feel the isolation and wildness of the island in this book; you get a feel for the life of the animals and the impacts of human presence over the years.

Personally, I find seed banks fascinating. There is an incredible amount of work put in by so many different people over such a long time, collecting and sorting and housing and maintaining them. There's a sense of life and newness but also death and doom; an overhanging awareness of preparing for the end. McConaghy did a wonderful job (as she always does) of educating us all about them in an easily digestible and non-lecturing way. Having Ollie as the little walking seed encyclopaedia to help with this was perfect (he was a stand out character overall).

This book is haunting and mysterious, atmospheric and emotional (I was sobbing). It deals with families and a parent's love and the bond between siblings, as well as grief and love and connection and hope. It's about trust and lies and innocence and deception.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Australia for letting me read and review this book. I would definitely recommend it.

The setting of this story is just as wild, lonely and desperate as the characters within it. They are mysterious, all holding back something but are not willing to give, just like Shearwater Island and the research family where this story is based. The fictional island was based on Macquarie Island, located about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica.

Initially I thought Wild Dark Shore was going to be a foreboding piece of literary fiction, a reflection on a time not too far away from now, where an international seed bank is needing to be protected and moved before the impacts of climate change erode the facility. There is a sense of mystery emerging. There is a quiet friction and tension buzzing across the caretaker family – Dominic and his three children (Raff, Fen and Orly), and the woman who washes up on their shores, literally (Rowan). Her name is almost a metaphor for her place in this story: pulled into the shores of Shearwater Island and saved, and the hand that reaches out to save this family. All the characters are quite extraordinary and peculiar: grief and loss has them in a holding pattern and with an unnatural connection to the flora and fauna of the island. Some are talking to those they have lost, because they are also lost among each other. Within this disconnection there is love, all sorts of love: love that protects at all costs, and binds, love at a safe distance, a love compounded by memories, and a yearning that love could bring about change.

Rowan’s connection to the island is a puzzle, made clearer as the tides rise and start to engulf the seed vault, where more things are brought to the surface. There are so many dark secrets on this little island, all threatened by the oceans wanting to wash them away. The lack of communication is the make or break for survival. Tenacity is up against determination and suspicion. They are so isolated from the world as much as they are isolated from each other. Thanks #penguinaustralia, such stirring and beautiful writing.

*I received a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review- all opinions are my own*
This book! Wild Dark Shore drew me in from the first page and I devoured it in a day and a half. The prose is so vivid, the setting is beautifully rendered and the characters (especially the children) and captivating. I went in with very little idea of what this book was about and I think that was perfect- there is an unsettling tension from the very beginning and while I thought I knew what was going to happen, the twists and turns meant I didn’t until the very end. What a delight- strong contender for my favourite book of the year and it’s only March. 4.5 stars rounded up.

“Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy is a psychological drama set on a remote, inhospitable island between Australia and the Antarctic.
The widowed Dominic Salt and his three children live in the old lighthouse as caretakers to a seed vault. They are making preparations to leave as the effects of climate change are endangering both themselves and the seeds and they must try and save as many as possible. Each of them have issues and coping mechanisms that may make their return to mainland life tough.
Into their unusual existence, a wild storm throws a barely alive young woman onto the shore and the family must tend to her. How and why she is there is a mystery that slowly unravels along with the secrets that the family are keeping for reasons of their own, Radio communications from the island have been damaged so these characters are marooned until the ship arrives in a few weeks to pick them up. They are damaged souls who slowly find solace in each other, working their way through grief, loss, trauma and pain.
While the characters are interesting enough I found the motives and actions of Rowan, the “intruder” a little puzzling. The contrast between her early life and marriage and what ensues on the island doesn’t really mesh for me. Although, since some people can definitely present charming enough fronts to hide unsavoury traits beneath, perhaps her mixed emotions are understandable.
What I enjoyed the most was the atmosphere and the descriptions of the harsh natural environment and abundant wildlife. From the tropics, I could almost feel the biting wind, freezing water and taste the salty air.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and this is my honest review.

After experiencing McConaghy’s wonderful Once there were wolves I was eager to read Wild dark shore. It is set on Shearwater, a tiny island near Antarctica, and the home of a large seed bank. With sea levels rising, the researchers have departed leaving Dominic Salt and his three children to pack up the seeds before a ship arrives back to take them to safer ground. Then a mysterious woman is washed ashore. Why was she trying to reach this remote island and what secrets are the Salts hiding?

Told from multiple points of view McConaghy gradually builds up a picture of the Salt family and Rowan the woman the sea have brought to shore. Dominic Salt is still grieving the death of his wife many years before, his eldest son Raff is trying to get over a broken heart, his 10-year-old son Orly is obsessed with botany and fearful of what will be lost from the seed bank and Fen, his 17-year-old daughter is isolated from the family, sleeping with the seals on the beach. As they care for Rowan, she uncovers sabotage of the radio and a fresh grave.

Wild dark shore is multi-layered with gripping suspense on many levels. I found myself holding my breath wondering what damage the incoming storm would do to the human and animal inhabitants of this rugged island and whether the Salts would be able to rescue the precious seeds from the flooding waters. The inner struggles of Rowan and the family and the secrets they were hiding were gradually revealed and I became engrossed in the stories of these six people. I was desperate to find out about Rowan’s experience with the bushfire that destroyed her property and its beautiful ghost gums, and Fen’s reason for sleeping with the whales. I held my breath as Orly sorted through seeds and told the reader about the wonders of different plants and related to Raff’s suffering from losing his first love and determination to hold his family together especially as Dom seemed unable to let go of the ghost of his wife. And as a lover of the mystery genre I was kept guessing about the possibility of murder on the island.

Wild dark shore is certain to appeal to readers of different genres because of its evocative writing and themes of mysterious death, life on an isolated island and climate change. It is highly recommended.

The Wild Dark Shore is a stunning read, a rough, wild and emotional journey through the wilderness of an isolated island and humanity on the brink of ruin.

The prose is mesmerising and has a cadence which seems to mimic the ebbs and flow of the tides and the wind, so that it feels like you are surrounded by the wilderness of Shearwater island. The story of the Salt family is so entwined with the natural world around them that surrounds them that the chaos and wilderness starts to blur. This is a heart breaking story of the wonder and cruelty of both nature and humanity, and the resilience of both as our climate starts to crumble.

I can’t speak more highly about the heart wrenching and heart lifting experience of reading this book. McConaghy writes with passion, wonder and honesty, making this a must read.

Thank you Penguin Random House Australia for an advance copy of this book. Opinions expressed are my own.

This was a beautiful, honest and thought provoking read that I absolutely devoured. I think it will be my top read of the year!!

Dominic and his three kids are caretakers of a remote island between Australia and Antarctica called Shearwater. It is home to the largest seed bank and was once filled with researchers. When a woman washes up on shore, the Salt family must determine how to go on with a new person among them, and how to keep their secrets safe. How will they protect their millions of seeds?

From the first pages, I was drawn into the authors stunning descriptions, and I loved the different scientific perspectives from the kids. It was easy to fall in love with these characters and to feel their grief, isolation, pain and fear. McConaghy illustrates complex relationships with ease but as I read I could feel the love this family had for one another. This book bends genres with aspects of a thriller, slow burn romance, and also well researched biological information. There were also a couple of twists I did not see coming!

After living on the island for 8 years, things have begun to become more dire, with violent storms, endangered animals, and flooding just to name a few. I was immersed into this world and was glued to the pages of this book late into the night. There are such powerful and impactful messages within about climate change, our earth and family. The realities faced by these characters were confronting, raising countless questions for the reader. The writing throughout was beautiful and I loved the different styles for each characters- Orly and his plants, Fen and her seals, and Raff and his whales. There’s a powerful journey Dominic travels as well through grief, and fatherhood. Wild Dark Shore was atmospheric, haunting and drawing connection between the human spirit and our earth. It was a beautiful and emotional but tumultuous love letter to our earth. Absolutely Breathtaking!

Thank you so much to @netgalley @charlottemcconaghy and @penguinrandomhouse for an advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest thoughts. I was delighted to read this one early!

There's so much to love about McConaghy's latest novel - the story is propulsive and the setting truly comes alive in such a beautiful way. I loved the nature writing and the exploration about what we are collectively doing to our beautiful planet and how some of these consequences might play out. I particularly loved the chapters narrated by Orly that looked at various types of seeds and what makes them unique and incredible.

Unfortunately, overall, it just didn't come together for me the way it has for so many other readers. There are (many) parts in the novel that require the reader to suspend belief on what is possible or likely which is often the case in this genre; however, I struggled to do this here, particularly in the final quarter. I didn't fully believe the central romance plot or their apparent deep emotional connection which I think ultimately left me less emotionally invested and less forgiving when it came to suspending belief for other plot points.

I completely understand why so many people love this book and have no doubt that it will find its audience. Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Australia for the copy of this book.

I really loved reading the book and the story is immersive and it is well written. The gripping mystery of this atmospheric island that weaves in emotions of grief, survival, love and trust makes this book compellingly sad and hopeful.

Thank you NetGalley and to the publisher Penguin Random House Australia for the ARC.

This was a profoundly moving book.
The plot twists were unpredictable, but not shocking and added to the tender mood.
I’m glad I read this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Australia for the arc.

Charlotte McConaghy is no doubt up there with some of the best who write so painfully and beautifully of the insidious and widespread devastation of climate change and all of the ethical dilemmas we humans grapple with in the face of it. WILD DARK SHORE is her latest!

In short, it takes place on a tiny island between Tasmania and Antarctica, where a man and his three children have been its caretakers for about 8 years, all the researchers have abandoned the station and the family is left to pack up one of the last seed banks in existence as the island begins to sink and they wait for their boat ride out of there. Their isolated existence is interrupted though when a woman, barely alive, washes up on the shore….

I found a lot to love about this - the mystery and uneasiness of it’s opening and the set up, the changing of perspectives, particularly between Dominic and Rowan, with each character’s motivations and suspicions dropped like breadcrumbs for the reader, the sense of place and atmosphere invoked by McConaghy’s writing, and her ability to balance a story between humans’ ability to cause extraordinary damage to the planet while being at the complete mercy of its forces of nature. The writing is undeniably captivating and this is a real page turner, no doubt about it.

However this one didn’t quite meet the high expectations I had of it and didn’t seem to pan out where I thought it was going to head. The story started out really great for me but I found it got a bit weighed down in by its own earnestness. I also found I had to pretty much suspend all belief as the story took one twist and turn after another towards the end. I’ve seen other readers really resonate with this book though and find it to be very powerful and moving - which I can also see!

I have no doubt this will fly off the shelves and my gripes didn’t stop me from powering through it. It also hasn’t stopped me from admiring her work or knowing I’ll always pick up anything she writes! Just not sure this is my favourite of hers to date.

Charlotte McConaghy’s third novel Wild Dark Shore is, as the title promises wild. It is a beautiful but also harrowing cautionary tale that fits in the climate fiction category but is also much much more.
Wild Dark Shore opens with the body of a woman, washed ashore on the rocky coast of a small sub-Antarctic island called Shearwater. The woman, who we learn is called Rowan, is patched up and brought back to health by the remaining inhabitants of the island – father Dominic and his three children – Raff, Fen and Orly. Shearwater was a research station but all of the researches have gone. It is also the site of a global repository of seeds, but the storage facility is failing due to the melting permafrost and a rescue mission is coming to salvage as many of the seeds as possible. Rowan has come to the island to find her husband Hank who was the lead researcher, although she keeps this from her rescuers who themselves seem to be holding secrets about the island and what happened to the other people who were working there. But even with all of this obfuscation, Rowan develops relationships with all of the family, helping them and herself heal, at least until those many secrets come to light.
Wild Dark Shore is absolutely a climate story. Set sometime in the near future when fires and floods have affected the mainland and sea level rise is threatening the island and its inhabitants. The seed rescue mission is focussed on replenishing seed stocks needed for human survival, not the decorative or unique. And there is a strong thread in the narrative about whether it is right to bring new children into a world that is under this kind of threat.
While the climate effects drive much of the ticking clock element of the novel, Wild Dark Shore is much than just a clifi novel. Through its limited cast of characters and strict bounds, the island becomes a microcosm through which much broader issues can be distilled down and considered. This is a book about parents and children, about dealing with grief, about what we choose to prioritise and about how we live in the world.
A key aspect of this novel is McConaghy’s description of the island and its animal inhabitants. Shearwater is based on the very real Macquarie Island, a place where in the past sealers and whalers had indiscriminately slaughtered the native wildlife. McConaghy brings the windy, freezing wildness of the island to life but also manages to get across its fragility as rising sea level and temperatures threaten its hardy but delicate ecosystem.
Wild Dark Shore feels more contemplative in its opening stages but as its secrets emerge, it becomes more dramatic, building to some breathless action scenes. But McConaghy has earned these beats and always keeps the characters and their shifting relationships at the centre, deepening those scenes and making them land with plenty of impact.

INCREDIBLE. This is an absolutely gripping novel. First 5 star read of the year for me. Cannot wait to sell this to everyone who walks into the store. I will be RAVING about this book from the mountain tops to whoever will listen. Unforgettable, atmospheric read.