I adore Charlotte McConaghy’s writing and if you haven’t yet read MIGRATIONS or ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES, I suggest you seek them out. Her latest book WILD DARK SHORE (Penguin Random House 2025) is once again everything you could want in a novel: lyrical prose, evocative descriptions of the natural world, brilliant characterisation of unforgettable characters (people that will stay in your heart), and exploration of the author’s two trademark themes – the personal (guilt, loss, betrayal, passion) and the worldly (climate change and its consequences). She also writes a fantastic, compelling and engaging narrative, a fast-paced plot that invites the reader in and then immerses us until it is all we care about until the closing pages.
The Salt family are the caretakers on the (fictional) island of Shearwater near Antarctica. Dad Dominic and his three children, Fen and Raff (adolescents) and Orly (only nine) are the last people remaining on the island with the seals, the penguins and the whales (and the rising tides) after the other researchers have already departed. The Salts have been tasked with the gradual shut-down of the encampment and the care of the Seed Bank (a huge frozen storage facility containing millions of seeds from plants, flowers and trees from around the world) until the precious seeds (some of them the last remaining specimens) can be safely transferred to the mainland. Because the seas are rising and the environment on Shearwater is becoming unstable, the whole research facility has been abandoned, with the seeds and the Salt family being the last to leave. The Seed Bank is the last hope for what is likely to be a drowned and / or burnt future.
The four of them live an isolated and solitary life on the island, which for various reasons due to past circumstances, suits them all. Dominic is escaping the demons of his past grief. Raff records the underwater songs of whales. Fen is most at home with the seals and sleeps down by the beach with them rather than at the lighthouse with her family. And Orly, having lived his entire life on the island, is the most knowledgeable and passionate about the seeds.
When a stranger, barely alive, a woman with seaweed in her hair and water in her lungs, washes up on their beach during a terrible storm, the Salts do everything they can to save her life. But as they nurse Rowan back to health and she recovers, they search for answers to the mystery of her arrival. Where did she come from? How did she get to such an isolated place when there is no sign of a ship? And perhaps most importantly, why is she here? Rowan is keeping secrets about her life and her reason for coming to Shearwater. Equally, the entire Salt family have secrets of their own, and they don’t welcome a stranger poking around in their affairs when they have so little time left to wrap up their work and leave the island.
Can Rowan trust the Salt family? Can they trust her?
This is a novel of terrifying love, ferocious beauty and wild weather; a psychological thriller about nature and humans. McConaghy’s writing always showcases the natural world and our tenuous link to it; she explores the fragility of life and the changes to climate, weather, biodiversity and land management that risk all of us metaphorically running off a cliff. She asks the question: what is worth saving?
In an epitaph, she echoes the thought that ‘love is a bridge’. We don’t always understand our grief for those we have lost or the reason it is so affecting, even years later. Her characters hold onto their grief fiercely, perhaps too long. Maybe it is preventing them from moving forward.
McConaghy explores the parent / child bond with the notion that sometimes children are wise beyond their years and are capable of saving their parents. She similarly navigates the bonds (and losses) between people and the land we call Home and looks at how we grieve for lost places as much as lost people.
The novel is energetic, fast-paced and constantly surprising. There are many twists in the situations and circumstances that are hinted at but not explained until the end. Sabotaged communication equipment, a fresh grave, strange and unexplained behaviour; all lead every character to question the motives of the others.
Everything in this novel makes sense. Every character, every action, every theme. I could not stop reading this propulsive, taut, thrilling, compulsive and surprising narrative. Nothing is as we think, and reasons and motivations are cleverly hidden.
The book is told through multiple points of view which enables the reader to pay close attention to their individual rationales.
Themes include diversity, gender, family, guilt, loss, loyalty, revenge, duty, safety, responsibility, freedom and loss, both place and personal. This brilliant, luminous novel pivots on the notion that what with out-of-control bushfires, rising sea levels and a lack of biodiversity due to poor land management (amongst other issues), the world is facing either ‘drowning, burning or starving’. The drive to rescue and respect what we have is breathtaking.
In the tight and compelling narrative, with so many important social and biological themes and issues, the question is raised: what would you do? if you had to make difficult choices and decisions about what or who is saved. These ethical and moral dilemmas broach both broad and intimate situations. WILD DARK SHORE is bursting with love, tenderness, pragmatic solutions, joy, anxiety, optimism and hope. It balances danger and protection with fear and compulsion.
The obvious question of the book is what is Rowan running away from? Or what is she running towards? But this extrapolates to how do we protect our children? How do we keep them safe from the world? How do we keep them safe from ourselves? How do we rebuild a life after great loss? And how do we risk loving again when everything around us is destroyed or perished? How do we acknowledge and tackle the bleak while recognising and embracing the wonder?