Wild Dark Shore
by Charlotte McConaghy
Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, Wild
Dark Shore, is set on Shearwater, a fictional island between Australia and
Antarctica, based on the real Macquarie Island. The plot unfolds in an imagined
– but frighteningly plausible – near future. The only inhabitants of Shearwater
are the island’s custodians: widower Dominic Salt and his three children. Until
recently, the island was also home to a group of researchers tasked primarily
with protecting the world’s largest seed bank, which holds specimens of all
existing plants and could be used to revive extinct species. As waters rise and
the island is battered by increasingly fierce storms, the scientists have
departed, and the Salts will soon be forced to evacuate as well.
In this doomsday scenario, a mysterious woman, Rowan, is washed ashore. As the Salts nurse her back to health, Rowan disrupts their family dynamic, prompting them to question their decisions, their loyalties, and their future. It soon becomes abundantly clear that all the characters harbour explosive secrets—raising the question of how far they can truly trust one another.
Wild Dark Shore taps into environmental themes explored
in several novels over recent years, including Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From and Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know. Against this broader
backdrop, however, McConaghy weaves a taut domestic thriller in which nothing
is quite as it seems, and each character has the potential to be both hero and
villain, perhaps simultaneously. The plot is cleverly paced, and despite its
pervasive sense of dread at a world (and a family) on the brink of collapse,
the novel ultimately evokes a refreshing sense of hope. This was a gripping
read that helped pull me out of a reading hiatus earlier this year.
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