Somewhere, Dr. Ian Malcolm is muttering “I told you so” and toasting the fate of Hank Jones.
Charlotte McConaghy’s “Wild Dark Shore” was a heckuva book to end 2025 on — my 30th and final read of the year. It’s the tale of a widower, Dominic Salt, and his three children — Fen, Raf and Orly — the last group of caretakers on a remote island somewhere in between Australia and Antarctica. Watching over a UN-sanctioned global seed vault, Dominic is not only responsible for the lives of his children, but kinda sorta the fate of humanity as well. Those seeds die and, well …
It’s all fine and good for Dominic — he can continue to grieve the loss of his wife while trying to protect his kids from ever having feelings about anything just as long as the vault’s crumbling walls and their meager rations hold out long enough for the final ship to come pick up as many of the seeds they can save along with the Salt family.
If only Rowan hadn’t washed up near shore just in time for Fen to see her clinging to life.
It’s the mystery/thriller nature lovers and wannabe botanists didn’t know they needed. Intrigue and action set against the backdrop of nature’s impending doom. But it’s also so much more than that. It’s about deeply damaged people carrying all sorts of guilt trying to heal themselves and each other.
Rowan doesn’t want to love anybody. Certainly not children. Yet she’s drawn to this family, especially young Orly, who shares her intense love of nature and all the living things within their reach, from plants to trees to animals.
Fen doesn’t want to let anyone into her grief except the physical manifestations of her mother’s existence, stealing bits and pieces in the form of books and baubles from her father’s bedroom.
Raff takes his grief out on a punching bag because he just can’t talk about what happened to Alex, a researcher at the now-defunct lab base.
And Dominic takes Stoicism to the next level, as if that’s going to keep anything from penetrating his hardened emotional shell.
So many twists and turns to this story, and I am grateful I was able to use one of those lost days between Christmas and New Year’s to plant myself on the sofa and just read straight through. McConaghy does a tremendous job here creating realistic, flawed human beings and building a narrative and character arcs that are incredibly compelling. And it’s been a hot minute since I’ve read something that makes a living character out of the surroundings, which McConaghy does to perfection. The ocean, the island … as Dr. Malcolm famously says, life does indeed find a way.
And fair warning: It’s also a bit of a tearjerker. And if you love everything about the outdoors, be prepared to physically ache more than just a little bit. You know that feeling when you are leaving a national park or even just Central Park and it just kind of hurts because you don’t know when you’ll be back again? Yeah, that.
Now I understand why this was on so many “best of” lists for 2025. A great read and definitely one you should not pass up.
LitzyDitz 