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Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Contemporary fiction

Wild Dark Shore

Repeat author

by Charlotte McConaghy

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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.

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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)

Repeat authors
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The Bodyguard
A Killing Cold
Wild Dark Shore
House of Glass
Like Mother, Like Daughter
The Lost Story
Good Dirt
The Night Swim
The Pairing
Beach Read
Hera
The God of the Woods
One-Star Romance
The Paradise Problem
We Are the Brennans
Daisy Jones & The Six
This Tender Land
The Silent Patient
The Four Winds
You Are Not Alone
One by One
Yours Truly
Survive the Night
Troubles in Paradise
Home Before Dark
The Lost Apothecary
Things You Save in a Fire
Real Americans
The Wishing Game
One Day in December
The Great Alone
People We Meet on Vacation
The Reckless Oath We Made
Lock Every Door
The Family Upstairs
Long Bright River
Infinite Country
Part of Your World
Recursion
The Half Moon
A Ladder to the Sky
The Sun Down Motel
The Mothers
The Vanishing Half
Memorial
The Shadows
Immortal Longings
Just for the Summer
The Connellys of County Down
Don't Cry for Me
The Knockout Queen
Happy & You Know It
Ask Again, Yes
Practical Magic
Lot
The Woman in Cabin 10
Dark Matter
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Final Girls
Hello Stranger
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Wife Between Us
The Broken Girls
In a Holidaze
The Last Time I Lied
Gods of Jade and Shadow
A Million Junes
The Bride Test
The Turn of the Key
The Last Word
Dark Corners
Foul Lady Fortune
Evil Eye
The Soulmate
Beautiful Ugly
Isaac’s Song
Repeat authors
View all
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The Bodyguard
A Killing Cold
Wild Dark Shore
House of Glass
Like Mother, Like Daughter
The Lost Story
Good Dirt
The Night Swim
The Pairing
Beach Read
Hera
The God of the Woods
One-Star Romance
The Paradise Problem
We Are the Brennans
Daisy Jones & The Six
This Tender Land
The Silent Patient
The Four Winds
You Are Not Alone
One by One
Yours Truly
Survive the Night
Troubles in Paradise
Home Before Dark
The Lost Apothecary
Things You Save in a Fire
Real Americans
The Wishing Game
One Day in December
The Great Alone
People We Meet on Vacation
The Reckless Oath We Made
Lock Every Door
The Family Upstairs
Long Bright River
Infinite Country
Part of Your World
Recursion
The Half Moon
A Ladder to the Sky
The Sun Down Motel
The Mothers
The Vanishing Half
Memorial
The Shadows
Immortal Longings
Just for the Summer
The Connellys of County Down
Don't Cry for Me
The Knockout Queen
Happy & You Know It
Ask Again, Yes
Practical Magic
Lot
The Woman in Cabin 10
Dark Matter
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Final Girls
Hello Stranger
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Wife Between Us
The Broken Girls
In a Holidaze
The Last Time I Lied
Gods of Jade and Shadow
A Million Junes
The Bride Test
The Turn of the Key
The Last Word
Dark Corners
Foul Lady Fortune
Evil Eye
The Soulmate
Beautiful Ugly
Isaac’s Song