Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

After experiencing McConaghy’s wonderful Once there were wolves I was eager to read Wild dark shore. It is set on Shearwater, a tiny island near Antarctica, and the home of a large seed bank. With sea levels rising, the researchers have departed leaving Dominic Salt and his three children to pack up the seeds before a ship arrives back to take them to safer ground. Then a mysterious woman is washed ashore. Why was she trying to reach this remote island and what secrets are the Salts hiding?

Told from multiple points of view McConaghy gradually builds up a picture of the Salt family and Rowan the woman the sea have brought to shore. Dominic Salt is still grieving the death of his wife many years before, his eldest son Raff is trying to get over a broken heart, his 10-year-old son Orly is obsessed with botany and fearful of what will be lost from the seed bank and Fen, his 17-year-old daughter is isolated from the family, sleeping with the seals on the beach. As they care for Rowan, she uncovers sabotage of the radio and a fresh grave.

Wild dark shore is multi-layered with gripping suspense on many levels. I found myself holding my breath wondering what damage the incoming storm would do to the human and animal inhabitants of this rugged island and whether the Salts would be able to rescue the precious seeds from the flooding waters. The inner struggles of Rowan and the family and the secrets they were hiding were gradually revealed and I became engrossed in the stories of these six people. I was desperate to find out about Rowan’s experience with the bushfire that destroyed her property and its beautiful ghost gums, and Fen’s reason for sleeping with the whales. I held my breath as Orly sorted through seeds and told the reader about the wonders of different plants and related to Raff’s suffering from losing his first love and determination to hold his family together especially as Dom seemed unable to let go of the ghost of his wife. And as a lover of the mystery genre I was kept guessing  about the possibility of murder on the island.

Wild dark shore is certain to appeal to readers of different genres because of its evocative writing and themes of mysterious death, life on an isolated island and climate change. It is highly recommended.

Themes: Family, Climate change, Seed banks, Mystery.

Pat Pledger