Get your first book for just $9.99.

Join today.

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get your first book for just $9.99.

Join today.

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the appget the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Already have the app? Explore here.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Contemporary fiction

Wild Dark Shore

Repeat author

by Charlotte McConaghy

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Volume 0
Volume 0

A free gift for you.

Embroidered and thoroughly spellchecked. Add it to your first box.

No thanks, just checkout

Quick take

On a remote island, a mysterious woman is sheltered by a struggling family. Will she unite them, or break them apart?

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Family_Drama

    Family drama

  • Illustrated icon, Salacious

    Salacious

  • Illustrated icon, Nature

    Nature

Synopsis

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.

Content warning

This book contains mentions of suicide and sexual assault.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Wild Dark Shore.

Wild Dark Shore

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 black roar. She dives under and swims out. Reaches for this bulbous thing to help steer it free. When her feet hit sand she rises, dragging the driftwood behind her. Swell slaps at her thighs and hips but she knows how to move with the water so as not to be tumbled. Preparing all the while for something terrible. Something altering. But a last wave sends the tangle onto the beach and the girl parts the curtain of snarled kelp to reveal a face, and it is not swollen or blue or nibbled; it is breathing.

Create a free account!

Sign up to see book details, our quick takes, and more.

By pressing "Sign up", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Why I love it

Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore was the perfect rainy-day read for me, holed up in my apartment on an inclement weekend. This atmospheric and eerie novel swept me away to the other side of the globe—a setting drenched in salt water and ravaged by untamed weather, but threatened most by dangers that are all too human.

Set on Shearwater, a remote island off the coast of Antarctica, Wild Dark Shore tells the story of the Salt family, who are caretakers of the island. Formerly a research station, due to rising sea levels Shearwater is now inhabited only by Dominic Salt and his three children. While inhospitable and challenging, the island is full of stark beauty and allows the family a deep connection with the natural world. As isolation begins to take its toll on the Salts’ dynamics, an unprecedented storm brings with it an unexpected visitor. Who is the mysterious woman who has washed ashore—and what will she discover about the Salt family and the past that has brought them to this remote corner of the world?

This sharp psychological drama explores the turmoil being wrought upon our natural world, and the turmoil that exists within complex family relationships. Wild Dark Shore challenges us to consider how we treat our loved ones and, ultimately, our planet.

Other books by Charlotte McConaghy

Member ratings (979)

Family drama
Wild Dark Shore
A Season of Light
Good Dirt
The House of My Mother
What Happened to the McCrays?
A Killing Cold
Isaac’s Song
A Home for the Holidays
Rental House
Definitely Better Now
Dinner for Vampires
The Last One at the Wedding
The Night We Lost Him
Madwoman
Hum
Family Happiness
Incidents Around the House
Husbands & Lovers
Same As It Ever Was
Jackpot Summer
The Lion Women of Tehran
Did I Ever Tell You?
Real Americans
Just for the Summer
All We Were Promised
Hard by a Great Forest
Family Family
Northwoods
Mercury
The Second Chance Year
A Winter in New York
Check & Mate
What We Kept to Ourselves
The Leftover Woman
While You Were Out
Evil Eye
Just Another Missing Person
Family Lore
Little Monsters
The Connellys of County Down
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Paper Names
Divine Rivals
Hang the Moon
The Last Russian Doll
Maame
White Horse
The Family Game
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
You're Invited
Marrying the Ketchups
Part of Your World
The Good Left Undone
The Verifiers
The Unsinkable Greta James
Don't Cry for Me
Black Cake
Olga Dies Dreaming
The Family
The Book of Magic
Crying in H Mart
Sankofa
Everything We Didn't Say
Apples Never Fall
The Sweetest Remedy
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
We Are the Brennans
Skye Falling
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Things We Lost to the Water
Libertie
What's Mine and Yours
The Bad Muslim Discount
The Push
The Chicken Sisters
In a Holidaze
White Ivy
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
Practical Magic
Head Over Heels
The Vanishing Half
All Adults Here
The Kingdom of Back
I Have No Secrets
Saving Zoë
Color Me In
Past Perfect Life
Things You Save in a Fire
There's Something About Sweetie
All That You Leave Behind
Small Fry
& Sons
Family drama
View all
Wild Dark Shore
A Season of Light
Good Dirt
The House of My Mother
What Happened to the McCrays?
A Killing Cold
Isaac’s Song
A Home for the Holidays
Rental House
Definitely Better Now
Dinner for Vampires
The Last One at the Wedding
The Night We Lost Him
Madwoman
Hum
Family Happiness
Incidents Around the House
Husbands & Lovers
Same As It Ever Was
Jackpot Summer
The Lion Women of Tehran
Did I Ever Tell You?
Real Americans
Just for the Summer
All We Were Promised
Hard by a Great Forest
Family Family
Northwoods
Mercury
The Second Chance Year
A Winter in New York
Check & Mate
What We Kept to Ourselves
The Leftover Woman
While You Were Out
Evil Eye
Just Another Missing Person
Family Lore
Little Monsters
The Connellys of County Down
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Paper Names
Divine Rivals
Hang the Moon
The Last Russian Doll
Maame
White Horse
The Family Game
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
You're Invited
Marrying the Ketchups
Part of Your World
The Good Left Undone
The Verifiers
The Unsinkable Greta James
Don't Cry for Me
Black Cake
Olga Dies Dreaming
The Family
The Book of Magic
Crying in H Mart
Sankofa
Everything We Didn't Say
Apples Never Fall
The Sweetest Remedy
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
We Are the Brennans
Skye Falling
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Things We Lost to the Water
Libertie
What's Mine and Yours
The Bad Muslim Discount
The Push
The Chicken Sisters
In a Holidaze
White Ivy
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
Practical Magic
Head Over Heels
The Vanishing Half
All Adults Here
The Kingdom of Back
I Have No Secrets
Saving Zoë
Color Me In
Past Perfect Life
Things You Save in a Fire
There's Something About Sweetie
All That You Leave Behind
Small Fry
& Sons