The Salt family—Dominic, Raf, Fen, and Orly—are the remaining caretakers of Shearwater Island and its seed vault. The research station there had to be abandoned due to rising seawater. The Salt family and a selection of the seeds from the vault are supposed to be evacuated in a few short weeks. All that remains for the family to do is keep the vault from flooding and package up the seeds selected for rescue. A violent storm at the beginning of Charlotte McConaghy’s emotional new novel, Wild Dark Shore, brings them another task: to save the life of a woman who washed up after her ship was sunk. Although this premise suggests a novel about science and the environment, McConaghy delivers a tale that will punch readers right in the heart.
Rowan is lucky to be alive when she washes up on Shearwater Island (modeled on Australia’s Macquarie Island). She could have drowned, frozen, or been smashed to pieces on the rocky shore. Thankfully, she is spotted by Fen Salt and whisked up to the old lighthouse where the Salt family live while waiting for the ship that will take them back to Australia. The reasons that brought Rowan to the island are slowly unspooled over a good chunk of the novel, as well as the reason that Dominic Salt decided to up stakes and head for the edge of the world.
Wild Dark Shore slips between genres from heart-breaking literary fiction to thriller more than once. On the one hand, the Salt family are barely holding things together on the island. Dominic and Raf are frozen in grief for lost loved ones. Fen is turning near feral among the elephant seals and royal penguins. Orly talks to ghosts. Rowan is also nursing a broken heart. And yet, many of the poignant moments in the novel are interrupted by the revelation that something terrible happened on the island before Rowan arrived. Why is there a passport and a laptop hidden in the floor of the tool shed? Who smashed the radio, making it impossible to contact the mainland?
I liked quite a bit about Wild Dark Shore. The family’s efforts to preserve as much of the seed vault’s contents as possible struck me as deeply heroic. I was also charmed by the way the people and animals interacted on the island; Fen swims nearly as well as a seal and the family always pauses on the path to let the penguins go about their business. I also found Rowan fascinating. That said, I found the ending of the book infuriating. Not all readers will agree with me, I know, but the climax of the book nearly made me want to throw my ereader across the room. I’m still a little angry about the conclusion even as I write this review. Readers who are looking for a book that will make them ugly-cry, however, will probably enjoy Wild Dark Shore.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.