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.

Dominic Salt and his three children Raff, Fen and Orly are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island in between Tasmania and Antarctica. Here the world’s biggest seed bank is stored in a bunker and due to global warming the sea levels are rising, the Salts are packing the rarest and most important ones, before the ship arrives to transport them all to safety.

Dominic hasn’t gotten over the loss of his wife, the solution was to move to Shearwater, once it was busy research station and now it’s just the four of them left and soon it will be deserted and taken by the sea. After a terrible storm, a woman washes up on the rocky shore and Fen rescues her, they wonder why Rowan on a boat in such a remote area and are suspicious of her at first and she integrates herself into the family.

Rowan isn't telling the whole truth about why she sailed to Shearwater, her husband Frank Jones was the senior botanist and he sent her a couple of odd emails and she hasn’t heard from his since. Rowan discovers the radios and power supply have been damaged and they have no way of communicating with the outside world, oddly Fen is staying on the beach with the penguins and not with her family and Dominic is keeping secrets and he’s not the only one.

As their time at Shearwater ticks over, all the characters have to 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, both Dominic and Rowan have experienced loss and create a new life together.

I received a copy of Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy from NetGalley and Penguin Random House Australia in exchange for an unbiased review. I now understand why there’s been so much hype about this book, the narrative is full of twists and turns, and set in a remote and harsh place, and where whales, birds and penguins come to mate, have their babies and raise them and the Salts worry about what will happen to the animals and the diverse ecosystem of the rugged island once they leave.

A psychological thriller, one that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next, and full of complex characters, family dynamics, secrets, mystery, missing people, empty buildings, creepy ghost stories and acts of sabotage. Please make sure you read the author’s notes at the end, she mentions a famous explorer and as a child my eighty eight year old mother-law knew him well and five stars from me.

Wild Dark Shore is an atmospheric and poetic tale; with the perfect blend of mystery, secrets, heartbreak and love. While half the story focuses on the natural world and the unbelievable achievements it preforms daily; The other part focuses on the complex relationships that we have with family and those around us.

Despite the intriguing yet slow beginning, this story will hook you in without your knowledge. Strongly recommended having a box of tissues next to you as you read this unforgettable and powerful story.

Charlotte McConaghy has a way with words that flow off the page and will imprint into your consciousness long after you have finished the book. The historical details she researched and blended with the story were powerful and showcases some of Australia’s unique natural wonders and the impacts of bushfires on living things too.

I highly recommend everyone to read this when it comes out March 2024. This definitely will be my favourite book of the year!

Thank you to Netgallery and Penguin Random House Australia for this amazing ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Truly a devastating and haunting experience of a novel. It explores what it means to be human, how us as a species has impacted an entire planet and the resilience of nature in all its forms. It weaves beautifully in and out of family, tragedy and compassion without a hitch. The final 15% of this book had me gripping my chair!

There were so many topics touched on within this book, it made it very easy for there always to be something to think about. I especially appreciated the notion of how women are seen by society. It is very true when we say we don't want children, the looks we receive are bewildering.

I can definitely see this book being one that sticks with me for a long time. I can also see this one being a reference to others. I highly recommend this book, it has important discussions laid within the beautiful writing that should be explored.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After finishing the last page, I was completely spent after wiping the tears from my eyes and experiencing all the feels.

This book got to me. It got under my skin and into my psyche.

Charlotte McConaghy you are an exceptional writer!!

I don’t know the last time I had such a physical and emotional response to a book!!!

I went in blind and I almost think that is the best way to read this.

It’s beautiful.
It’s breathtaking.
It’s heartbreakingly good.

The Salt family live on an island 1000s of kilometres between Tasmania and Antartica.

No review can give it justice, so I’m not going to summarise it. Just read it.

I know it’s only March but I’m calling it - this could be the book of the year for me. It’s going to take something fairly spectacular to change my opinion.

It needs to win all the awards. 🏆🥇🎖️

Thank you @charlottemcconaghy @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for a copy in exchange for a review.

Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore is a masterful blend of suspense, emotion, and environmental reflection. This novel is set against the haunting backdrop of Shearwater Island—a remote landmass nestled between Australia and Antarctica. The narrative intricately weaves themes of survival, grief, and the profound bond between humanity and nature, delivering a story that resonates deeply with readers.

The plot unfolds with the mysterious arrival of Rowan, a woman found injured and washed ashore on Shearwater Island. The island's caretakers - Dominic and his three children take her in, unaware that her presence will unearth buried secrets and challenge their isolated existence.

McConaghy's writing is both lyrical and evocative and she paints vivid images of the island's rugged beauty and the escalating tension as nature's fury approaches (timely for me now as Cycone Alfred is approaching!). The character development is profound, with each member of the Salt family and Rowan portrayed with depth and authenticity. Their individual struggles and collective resilience form the emotional core of the novel, making their journey both compelling and relatable.

This would not be a book I would necessarily pick up from the bookstore, but I am so glad I did read it. It is worth more than 5 stars!

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

A slow-burn read that was confusing in parts. I had many questions, and it took me a while to connect all the dots. I felt like the pace picked up when they were trying to save the seeds, mother and child. I enjoyed this change of pace. I loved the backstories in the flashbacks especially learning about Rowan's construction skills. All the characters were quite complicated. I enjoyed how the author showed the character's true colours e.g. getting angry and smashing things. The ending was unfortunate and caught me off guard.

I received an ARC copy and am leaving this review voluntarily.

Family and intruder drama at the ends of the world, in more senses than one. McConaghy is dedicated to making the character dynamics a series of peaks and troughs and can never quite find the cohesion necessary to sell Rowan and the Salts together, but when Wild Dark Shore hits, it hits well: a fascinating location, a hanging sense of dread and an endless cascade of events to the finish add up to an imperfect but arresting novel.

Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations (2020) and Once There Were Wolves (2021) were outstanding – literary, thrilling and impactful. So this long-awaited new novel Wild Dark Shore, another near-future climate dystopia, was always going to be a must-read.

It took me a moment to get my bearings with this highly intimate, swiftly alternating, multi-character perspective narrative. The atmosphere within the character ensemble is thick with secrets (and much simply unsaid) from the word-go. Layering upon that her evocative depiction of the hostile climate, rugged environment and isolated location, McConaghy has developed a slow-burning, foreboding menace.

Her exploration of the highly nuanced, fragile line between nature’s striking beauty and ferocity, made for captivating reading. Immensely compelling also was the concentric layers of turmoil explored within Wild Dark Shore — from the individual characters’ inner struggles with grief and trauma, the tensions and suspicion within a group reliant on each other for daily survival, through to the practical and existential impacts of the global climate crisis.
.
The creeping tension and suspense accumulates as the mystery’s different threads unspool.

But for me, Wild Dark Shore’s most striking feature is the extent to which McConaghy plumbs the depth of familial love. Which particular aspects trigger readers’ emotions, and tear ducts, will depend on personal experiences. I was certainly aware of holding my breath and/or being moist-eyed multiple times. I found myself so impacted by this novel’s conclusion that I had to put it aside for several days before penning this review.

Wild Dark Shore is, once again, intensely thought-provoking and gut-punch moving writing from the supremely talented Charlotte McConaghy.

Wow, just wow! I'm a Charlotte McConaghy fan, having enjoyed her two previous titles but she has really raised the bar with this one. Suspenseful, gripping and imbued with a sense of dread, it also teaches so much about love and human connection, to other humans and our amazing natural world. The suspense built and built to a total cliffhanger. I enjoyed every breathtaking moment.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for an E ARC of a fantastic book.

I love love love Charlotte McConaghy! Wild Dark Shore was everything I hoped it would be. Rich, full of love for the wild environment, complex, deeply human characters and an ending that left me with tears pricking my eyes.

Set on an island not far from Antarctica we meet Dominic Salt and his three children who are caretakers of the island which includes one of the world's last seed banks. The family have lived there for 9 years after the death of Dominic's wife. Their world is rocked when a woman washes up on the shore. Mysteries are uncovered, relationships are formed, histories are unpacked.

This book was so compelling. I read it via an e-book and you can bet I'm buying a hard copy as soon as I can. I just loved it so. Charlotte McConaghy has such a gift for writing the natural world. This is as beautiful as her debut Migrations. The environment is central to her work and the changing climate is reflected in her novels.

All I can do is gush right now. If you are a McConaghy fan you will love this. If you are new to her work please give this one a go and fall in love as I have with her exquisite writing. But make sure you read her first two books as well!

4.5⭐️

Charlotte McConaghy delivers another beautifully written and deeply moving book. A story about the internal and external struggles experienced and the fight for survival, with nature as a central theme. Wild Dark Shore is a beautiful and bleak, breathtaking and heartbreaking, hopeful, gripping and haunting story of a family who are shattered by grief and weariness, who are simultaneously falling apart and fighting for survival. And ultimately they’re running out of time… As their profoundly remote yet bursting with life island home slowly surrenders itself into the sea they have to decide what to save, knowing they can only save some, not all. They will be haunted by their pasts and haunted by their uncertain futures…

Their home for many years has been the remote research island, Shearwater Island, where researchers study the wildlife, the weather, the tides. It’s a bleak and hostile place, but also a place of beauty and tenderness, with a hidden abundance of animals. They’re used to surviving in a remote place but they need to leave. The island has become too hazardous - weather events are getting worse and sea levels rising at alarms speed. In two months time they must leave alongside the seed vault which needs to be preserved and relocated elsewhere. Staying is perilous, but thinking about leaving nearly kills them. And then a stranger washes up on their shores. When a ferocious storm delivers her to them they know they don’t get to choose who and what’s worth saving, knowing they can only save some, not all, and knowing that they’ll just have to try to save her. But who is she, why did she come, and what is she doing here?

Charlotte McConaghy's third novel 'Wild Dark Shore' is so many things. It is dark. It is secretive. It is situational. It is character driven. It is so so good! Set on the seed vault island of Shearwater, near Antarctica, the sole family on the island, find a woman washed up on the shore. The family are in the final stages of relocating from the island to the mainland, due to the closure of the vault. While their grief, connects them to the woman, the secrets they hold keeps them apart. The themes of isolation, grief, family dynamics and of climate change keeps you wanting to read more.

I have never read a Charlotte McConaghy novel, but after reading 'Wild Dark Shore' I will be seeking them all out! I was hooked straight away! Is it too early to say it is my favourite book of 2025?

Wild Dark Shore is a beautifully written book set on an inhospitable island between Tasmania and Antarctica.

It is home to the Salt family, father Dominic and his children Raff, Fen and Orly. The island is also seasonally inhabited by researchers and the location of a globally important seed vault.

The violent history of the island from whaling and seal hunting has left it with a haunted vibe that is palpable at times.

When a woman washes up on shore one day it raises many questions as the small vessel that she was on did not find this island by chance. Who is she and what does she want?

The stories of all the characters and the convergence of them was frantic and disturbing at times. It felt almost gothic. The indication of a world fast heading towards catastrophe was sobering to read.

The incredible setting of a sub Antarctic island and the Salt residence being a lighthouse, albeit not a working one, was amazing as both are settings that I love

Shearwater was a small island not far from Antarctica, where a seed bank housed hundreds of thousands of the world's most precious seeds. The island only accommodated a few inhabitants - the Salt family, with Dominic at its head, and Raff (18), Fen (17) and Orly (9), his children - the last, as the island slowly succumbed to the sea. It was only weeks until the ship came to take them and the seeds to a safer place, when a ferocious storm hit Shearwater, bringing the island's destruction closer than ever. When Fen discovered a body washed up among the rocks, she hurried to retrieve it, expecting death, but the woman was alive, barely.

As the Salt family did all they could to bring Rowan back to life, her injuries bandaged, her pummeled body bruised, gradually, with constant rest, she recovered. As she came to know the family - Orly with his fascination of anything botanical, Raff and the anger he was fighting to control and Fen, who liked nothing more than spending her time by the shore with the seals - she knew Dominic wasn't telling her the whole truth. But then neither was she. As the island struggled for its existence, the race was on to retrieve the seeds for rehousing; danger was closing in on them all...

Wild Dark Shore is a phenomenal story by Aussie author Charlotte McConaghy, one I would have to say is my best read for a long time. The unique setting, the atmosphere, the mystery - all pulls together to present this outstanding piece of writing. It was easy to visualise; the hills, the seals at the shore, the cave, the dangerous rocky shoreline; the cold penetrated the bones - the verbal pictures were painted well. This is my first read by Charlotte McConaghy and I'll definitely be looking for more. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley & Penguin Random House AU for my digital ARC to read and review.

What an absolutely well written mystery at a perfect location.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the largest seed bank. Sea Levels are rising and now the island is with it’s last inhabitants - the salt family. During a terrible storm a woman washes up on shore – alive but very battered and bruised. Why did she arrive at Shearwater? That is the question on everyones lips.

I found this book addictive, the writing was superb. It is filled with many characters and everyone has a story. It was easy to follow along with all the characters and match everything up. I'm looking forward to reading more of Charlotte McConaghy in the future.

Thank you Penguin Random House Australia and Netgalley for gifting me a copy of this book for my honest book review.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt, sole parent to his three children, 18 year old Raf, 17 year old Fen and 9 year old Orly, is the caretaker of Shearwater, a tiny, remote island half way between Tasmania and Antarctica. They have lived on the island for eight years following the death of Dominic’s wife and mother of their children. With its huge populations of seabirds, penguins and seals the rocky shores were once a killing field for fur seal traders in the 19th century, but now the island is a research station and home to an important underground seed bank.

Due to climate change, sea levels are now rising, threatening to engulf the island. Violent storms are washing away the breeding grounds of the penguins and seals and seed bank is in danger of being swamped. The researchers have been recalled home and sabotage of the island’s power and communications systems have left the family cut off from help and the frozen seed bank to gradually warm. Dominic and the kids will also have to leave, in a few weeks on a ship sent to collect them. Now, all that’s left for them to do, is to pack a list of the seeds considered most important for the future of humanity, to transfer to the mainland when they leave.

During a wild storm, a woman called Rowan, is washed up on the island and rescued by Fen. As the family help her recover from her injuries, she begins to warm to each of them, especially young Orly with his enthusiastic and extensive knowledge of plants. Rowan has her own reasons for coming to the island to seek answers; answers that will uncover the dark secrets and the mystery the family have been keeping from her.

This beautifully written novel portrays a frightening vision of what extreme climate change is capable of doing to our world. Narrated by all five voices, showing how each of the family are bonded to the island, fearing for its future and the survival of its animals and fearful of their own future back in a rapidly collapsing world. Each of the family has already suffered grief and trauma, first from loss of their wife and mother, and then from traumatic events on the island. Rowan is also no stranger to grief and loss, having watched the house and garden she built herself in Australia’s Snowy Mountains, reduced to ashes by a rampaging bushfire.

The island is also an entity in its own right, atmospheric and ruggedly wild, one the children have grown up loving along with the eco-system it supports. They understand better than anyone the fragility and dependence of the relationship between humans, animals and plants that can so easily be disrupted, just as the relationships between Dominic and his children are complex and easily damaged. This gripping and thought-provoking tale of love and survival is both haunting and intense with an ending that may you leave you gasping.

‘She washes in with the storm, draped upon a tangle of driftwood.’

Dominic Salt and his three children are the final inhabitants on the remote island of Shearwater, a tiny island between Tasmania and Antarctica and home to the world’s largest seed bank, when an unconscious woman is washed ashore. The Salts are preparing for departure: the sea level is rising, and they are focussed on packing the seeds for transportation.

‘Surviving in remote places is all about setting up contingencies.’

Living on this remote, wild island has had an effect on each of the Salts: Dominic exists in the present but lives in the past; eighteen-year-old Raff is devasted by a loss; seventeen-year-old Fen finds an escape amongst the seals while nine-year-old Orly fears the loss of the natural world he loves.

And the mysterious woman? Her name is Rowan, and the Salts care for her. Why is Rowan on Shearwater? This is one of the mysteries which unfolds, as preparations for departure from Shearwater become more desperate.

What can I say, without spoiling this story? Ms McConaghy has written an atmospheric and engaging novel, one in which heartbreak, love, mystery, secrets and tragedy somehow augment each other in a powerfully effective way. While the natural world is an important part of this story, it was the complex and fragile relationships between individuals that captured my attention.

And the ending? I am still coming to terms with it.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

In my mind, it's the location that is the "star" of this book. A remote island, situated between Tasmania and Antarctica. It's been the location of the world's largest seed bank. But global warming and rising waters have the island under threat.
Dominic and his three children are the last inhabitants, due to leave in 8 weeks with a selection of the seeds. A stranger washes up on shore.
There's some mystery here, regarding who she is, why she was in the area, and the 4 inhabitants of the island have some secrets of their own.
At it's heart, its the story of family and the things you will do to protect them.
Moody and atmospheric, its a compelling read.

Charlotte McConaghy is a new to me author but I have just placed holds at my local library for two of previous books - that's how much Wild Dark Shore appealed to me!

From the first chapter this book had me enthralled - the characters, the setting, the darkness, the eeriness, the 'mystery' and the sadness kept me reading. I couldn't put it down! Although it was sad there were also periods of pure joy and I felt that love was the overriding emotion. The Salt family, Dominic, Raff, Fen and Orly had been through so much before they moved to the island of Shearwater as caretakers. It was heartbreaking in places but love saved the day!

When Rowan washed up after a terrible storm, more of their tragic back story was unearthed and she had a way of discovering things through her tenacious character and her own sad story.

It should have been a miserable book given all that happened but it wasn't in the slightest - it was gripping and intense and I just loved it! I particularly loved 9 year old Orly and his sweet way of talking and bis wide ranging knowledge of seeds and animals. I wanted the story to continue and find myself wondering what happened after they moved from the island.

Another interesting feature was the time setting, there wasn't a date given for the story and it could have been set in the present moment or sometime in the future - this added to the intrigue for me. This book will be published on March 2025 and I highly recommend it!

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Australia, and Charlotte McConaghy for the e-ARC.