Wild Dark Shore: A Novel

by Charlotte McConaghy

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A future ravaged by disastrous weather, a small town on the brink of collapse and one family at the center of it all. Gripping, visceral and taut, Wild Dark Shore is a complex story about survival, isolation and hope at the end of the world.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An ENTHRALLING new novel from the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves

"A WILDLY TALENTED writer." ―Emily St. John Mandel

“RIVETING.” ―Booklist (starred review)

“[A] TERRIFIC thriller.” ―Kirkus (starred review)

“As lush as it is TAUT WITH TENSION.” ―Library Journal (starred review)

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.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250827951
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	03/04/2025
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	507
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Charlotte McConaghy is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations, which are being translated into more than twenty languages. She is based in Sydney, Australia.

Editorial Reviews

01/06/2025

Australian writer McConaghy (Migrations) depicts in this urgent if uneven saga a family’s attempt to survive on a desert island in a near future ravaged by climate change. After fleeing Australia eight years earlier due to fires, floods, and other natural disasters, Dominic Salt lives with his three children on Shearwater Island, a remote former research outpost between Tasmania and Antarctica, where he tends a seed vault meant to replenish global food supplies. His wife, Claire, died before the voyage, and he still has conversations with her in his mind. During a storm, his oldest daughter, 17-year-old Fen, rescues a woman named Rowan who washes ashore following a shipwreck. Radio contact with the outside world is impossible, as all the island’s communication systems have been mysteriously destroyed, and it turns out that Rowan’s missing husband, Hank, was the team leader of the island’s research station. McConaghy ratchets up the tension as the characters’ paranoia and mutual suspicion increases and their motives are revealed, though she scuttles the momentum with predictable romantic subplots, and a late-stage plot twist strains credulity. For the most part, though, McConaghy blends entertainment with a sobering message about conservation and the impacts of geographic isolation. Readers of climate fiction ought to check this out. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Wild Dark Shore

Instant New York Times Bestseller

Instant Indie Bestseller

Instant USA Today Bestseller

Instant Washington Post Bestseller

Instant Los Angeles Times Bestseller

A Most Anticipated Book (Goodreads, Town & Country, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Bustle, WNYC, The Nerd Daily, Zibby’s Highlights, Geek Girl Authority)

#1 IndieNext Pick

A Book of the Month Club Selection

A Reader’s Digest Book Club Pick

“Spellbinding…Captivating…McConaghy keeps the novel moving at a blustery pace, thanks to her deft plotting and shared point of view…To read this exceptionally imagined, thoroughly humane novel feels like following the last people on Earth as they prepare to leave some part of their souls to the most beautiful place they’ll ever know.”

—Washington Post

“Vivid…Moving…Wild Dark Shore abounds with evocative nature writing…We’re shown why a person might withdraw from the messiness of life after tragedy and trauma…The novel also offers its injured characters a path back to connection and community, a risk McConaghy argues must be worth taking, no matter how fraught the future.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“A gripping tale…With a breathtaking setting and characters you’ll love, Wild Dark Shore is a suspenseful and moving must-read.”

—Reader’s Digest

“Charlotte McConaghy, the author of the fantastic Migrations and Once There Were Wolves, delivers yet another page-turner set in the wilderness, making readers grapple with climate change and what you would do to survive.”

—Town & Country

“A suspenseful, rushing read, full of short chapters, emotional twists, and a landscape it’s all too easy to sink into and live in. Wild Dark Shore is an exceptional book that hands readers a bittersweet helping of sorrow and joy, sounding a clarifying call towards a symbiotic survival that prioritizes our need to do more than simply subsist: to put trust in each other and in the nature that surrounds us.”

—Chicago Review of Books

“Gripping… A thriller promising a unique premise, complex characters, and an atmospheric setting, Wild Dark Shore is a must-read this March.”

—ScreenRant

“Riveting… McConaghy’s descriptions of nature’s glory and terror are galvanic, the psychological struggles wrenching, the suspenseful action spectacularly choreographed. McConaghy has attained new heights of intensity and lacerating ecological conviction in this complexly plotted, tragic, and all-consuming tale of the battle to survive.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“[A] terrific thriller…McConaghy keeps readers guessing…McConaghy writes about both nature and human frailty with eloquent generosity. Readers won’t want to leave behind the imagined world of pain and beauty that McConaghy has conjured.”

—Kirkus (starred review)

“Sub-Antarctic noir meets a love letter to the rapidly disappearing wild world in McConaghy’s latest…As lush as it is taut with tension, this novel is filled with both the joys and ravages of nature.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“Thought-provoking and passionately told…Wild Dark Shore asks, what will happen when we risk losing our homes and our neighbors? What will we save and what will we let go of? And how can we start again after the sea takes it all?”

—BookPage

“Urgent…McConaghy ratchets up the tension as the characters’ paranoia and mutual suspicion increases and their motives are revealed…McConaghy blends entertainment with a sobering message about conservation and the impacts of geographic isolation.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Remarkable…Raising issues of love and family and sacrifice, Wild Dark Shore is a beautiful examination of hope in the face of certain destruction.”

—Shelf Awareness

“At once a gripping mystery, an exquisitely written ode to the natural world, and a taut, psychological thriller, Wild Dark Shore is a triumph. Charlotte McConaghy is masterful in her ability to show the intricate connections between place and the human heart, and Wild Dark Shore shows her at the height of her powers. Breathtaking.”

—Hannah Kent, international bestselling author of Burial Rites

Praise for Once There Were Wolves

"Blazing . . . Visceral . . . As McConaghy shows in this stunning book, the limits of language lead us to the limits of empathy."

―Los Angeles Times

"A stunning amalgam of environmental fiction and a deep exploration of personal relationships . . . An exceptional book that captures the soul and breaks the heart, only to put it back together again."

―Newsweek (A Best Book of the Year)

"Suspenseful and poignant . . . [Inti’s] story unfolds as a meditation on the social and scientific consequences of influencing ecosystems, while reminding us that humans and animals alike can break our hearts."

―Scientific American

"Lyrical, captivating, thought-provoking and thrilling, this immersive read will capture your attention from the first page."

―Good Morning America

"Bold . . . A heartfelt and earnest novel."

―The New York Times Book Review

"[McConaghy] brings the reader into a world where humans have beaten the world into submission and out of balance, and mixes literary eco-fiction with elements of mystery and thriller novels."

―The Seattle Times

"Gripping and often very moving . . . Despite the darkness and pain at the heart of McConaghy’s novel, it is not a bleak book. Instead, it bears within it an argument about the possibility of change. Recognizing the presence of other ways of being, of other minds and presences enlarges us, affording us a glimpse of the unknowable."

―The Sydney Morning Herald

"Far more than an old wolves' tale. Instead, it illustrates what it’s like to be an outsider―from both a human and animal perspective―and the level of healing and acceptance it takes from within to be accepted and to accept yourself."

―Electric Literature

"The Australian author made waves with last summer's Migrations, a meditation on climate change and loneliness, and returns with a new story set in the Scottish Highlands, where two twin sisters join a team attempting to reintroduce a pack of wolves to their natural surroundings."

―Entertainment Weekly

"Spellbinding . . . Charlotte McConaghy has once again created a world where we must balance trust and fear, humanity and nature."

―Washington Independent Review of Books

"From the author of 2020's gorgeous Migrations comes a similarly earth-shattering tale of humanity's influence on the natural world."

―Thrillist

"Urges us to take a lesson from the wolves, and learn to lean on one another."

―BookRiot

"A lyrical novel with a wild heart."

―PopSugar

"A moving, moody story by the author of the 2020 novel Migrations."

―AARP

"This poetic and atmospheric novel is a mystery, a celebration of wolves, and a tribute to those who work to rewild our landscapes."

―EcoLit Books

"McConaghy excels at conveying the sensuous experience of nature and the emotions it provokes: wonder at its majesty, sorrow at its destruction. Unflinching in its view of the harm humans inflict on the environment and on each other―and insisting on the interconnectedness of the two―Once There Were Wolves delivers a powerful call for hope in the face of catastrophe."

―Shelf Awareness

"Intense, emotional and rich with beautifully rendered prose, McConaghy's novel is a powerful meditation on humanity, nature and the often frightening animalistic impulses lurking within us all . . . Another triumph for a rising fiction star, offering an intensely realized world for readers to get lost in."

―BookPage (starred review)

"Vividly realized . . . Gorgeously rendered . . . A story full of subtle surprises . . . This is a stunner."

―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Poetic . . . A lovely, gripping tale about a world that could be our own."

―Kirkus (starred review)

"McConaghy infuses Inti's adventures with ravishing descriptions of the landscape and the 'infinite mysteries of wolves' . . . McConaghy's richly plotted tale of suspense and psychological insight poses provocative questions about predators and humanity's impact on Earth."

―Booklist

"One of those very rare, special novels that changes you as you read, which you do as slowly as you can because you want to savor it, except the pages keep turning furiously because the story is so thrilling and so powerful, with some of the best characters I have ever read. Charlotte McConaghy has cemented herself as a sure-thing, must-read writer for me."

―Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is

"So damn good. A page-turner that makes you think and has a huge emotional impact."

―Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author of Annihilation (via Twitter)

Praise for Migrations

"True and affecting, elegiac and imminent . . . [Filled] with suspense and surprises, parceled out so tantalizingly that it took disciplined willpower to keep from skipping down each page to see what happens."

―The Washington Post

"Visceral and haunting . . . This novel's prose soars with its transporting descriptions . . . Migrations is a nervy and well-crafted novel, one that lingers long after its voyage is over."

―The New York Times Book Review

"Powerful . . . Vibrant…Unique . . . The novelistic equivalent of an energizing cold plunge."

―LA Times

"Suspenseful, atmospheric . . . As much a mystery as an odyssey."

―Vogue

"Thrilling . . . A detailed portrait of a woman on the cusp of collapse, consumed with a world that is every bit as broken as she is."

―TIME

"Gripping . . . By merging cli-fi and nature writing, the novel powerfully demonstrates the spiritual and emotional costs of environmental destruction."

―The Economist

"A good nautical adventure . . . Migrations moves at a fast, exciting clip, motored as much by love for 'creatures that aren’t human' as by outrage at their destruction."

―The Wall Street Journal

"[A] tantalizingly beautiful epic."

―Elle

"You can practically hear the glaciers cracking to pieces and the shrill yelps of the circling terns."

―Vulture

"At a time when it feels like we're at the end of the world, this novel about a different kind of end of the world serves as both catharsis and escape."

―Harper's Bazaar

"An ode to our disappearing natural world."

―Newsweek

"This page-turner is captivating, enlightening and surprisingly full of hope."

―CNN.com

"Gorgeous . . . A personal reckoning that cuts right to the heart. This beautiful novel is an ode―if not an elegy―to an endangered planet and the people and places we love."

―Literary Hub

"Migrations is a gripping tale that ultimately celebrates the beauty and resilience of the creatures―human and animal―that endure."

―Sierra Magazine

"Migrations is as beautiful and as wrenching as anything I've ever read. This is an extraordinary novel by a wildly talented writer."

―Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven

"This novel is enchanting, but not in some safe, fairy-tale sense. Charlotte McConaghy has harnessed the rough magic that sears our souls. I recommend Migrations with my whole heart."

―Geraldine Brooks, author of The Secret Chord and March

From the Publisher

★ 01/01/2025

Sub-Antarctic noir meets a love letter to the rapidly disappearing wild world in McConaghy's latest (following Once There Were Wolves). Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of a remote island near Antarctica, home to the Shearwater research base and the world's largest seed bank. Rising seas have been threatening the island, and readers meet the Salts as they are considering evacuating the island with their precious seeds. When a woman named Rowan washes up on shore, the Salts take her in and nurse her back to health. As Rowan recovers, she gets to know the family: Raff, Dominic's oldest son, is doing his best to channel his grief and rage from tragic heartbreak; Fen, his 17-year-old sister, is such a water creature that she lives among the seals; and Orly, the youngest boy, is consumed with love for the natural world. Rowan shares pieces of her past with the Salts, but unraveling the island's mysteries brings them both closer to hidden truths. As the seas rise to swallow the island, a race against time tests each person's love and loyalty. VERDICT As lush as it is taut with tension, this novel is filled with both the joys and ravages of nature.—Julie Kane

Library Journal

★ 2024-12-14
The reality of climate change serves as the pervasive context for this terrific thriller set on a remote island between Australia and Antarctica.

Four family members and one stranger are trapped on an island with no means of communication—what could go wrong? The setup may sound like a mix of Agatha Christie andThe Swiss Family Robinson, but Australian author McConaghy is not aiming for a cozy read. Shearwater Island—loosely based on Macquarie Island, a World Heritage Site—is a research station where scientists have been studying environmental change. For eight years, widowed Dominic Salt has been the island’s caretaker, raising his three children in a paradise of abundant wildlife. But Shearwater is receding under rising seas and will soon disappear. The researchers have recently departed by ship, and in seven weeks a second ship will pick up Dominic and his kids. Meanwhile, they are packing up the seed vault built by the United Nations in case the world eventually needs “to regrow from scratch the food supply that sustains us.” One day a woman, Rowan, washes ashore unconscious but alive after a storm destroys the small boat on which she was traveling. Why she’s come anywhere near Shearwater is a mystery to Dominic; why the family is alone there is a mystery to her. While Rowan slowly recovers, Dominic’s kids, especially 9-year-old Orly—who never knew his mother—become increasingly attached, and Rowan and Dominic fight their growing mutual attraction. But as dark secrets come to light—along with buried bodies—mutual suspicions also grow. The five characters’ internal narratives reveal private fears, guilts, and hopes, but their difficulty communicating, especially to those they love, puts everyone in peril. While McConaghy keeps readers guessing which suspicions are valid, which are paranoia, and who is culpable for doing what in the face of calamity, the most critical battle turns out to be personal despair versus perseverance. McConaghy writes about both nature and human frailty with eloquent generosity.

Readers won’t want to leave behind the imagined world of pain and beauty that McConaghy has conjured.

Kirkus Reviews