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Apr 15, 2025 By Frank Valish

New York Times bestselling author Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, Wild Dark Shore, is a riveting mystery set on the fictional island of Shearwater, between the continents of Australia and Antarctica. Shearwater houses the world’s largest seed bank, an historic repository that is meant to protect plant diversity in the case of particularly treacherous times ahead. The island once was filled with scientists and researchers, but now, with sea levels rising to dangerous levels, everyone has left but for one family, the Salts, a father and his three children, who are tending to the island and protecting its seed bank on their own. Until one day a mysterious stranger washes up on shore nearly dead.

Wild Dark Shore follows the woman’s convalescence in the care of the Salt family who nurture her back to health. But, as usual in mysteries such as these, everyone has secrets.

One of the things that truly sets Wild Dark Shore apart from other novels of similar style is its setting. Shearwater island is a place small in size but vast in natural wonder. The Salt family are not only caretakers of the seed bank but also of the wildlife on Shearwater, the whales, seals, penguins, and other fauna. They are in many cases beholden to the unmatched power of the sea, which is ever encroaching on their own living quarters. And they are a marvel of four people working together in often the harshest of conditions to make a life off of the grid.

Far be it from me to spoil any of the novel’s hidden truths, but suffice it to say that McConaghy holds most of them close to the vest throughout. What Wild Dark Shore becomes as its tale unfolds, apart from the absolute natural beauty and reverence presented in its engaging prose, is ultimately a story of family and those things which we hold dear. It is a story of buried trauma and the effects of such not only on ourselves but also on the ones we love. (www.flatironbooks.com)

Author rating: 7/10