Wild Dark Shore

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.

• Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
• Published: Macmillan Audio on March 4, 2025
• Genre: Mystery, thriller
• Listening length: 9 hours 58 minutes.
• Dates listened: 10.4.25 – 10.8.25
• Format: Audiobook (borrowed on Libby)
• Narrators: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, Steve West
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• ⭐⭐⭐
• 🌶🌶🌶

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Y’all, I think I committed a book cardinal sin before writing the review of this book. I’m going to be honest. My initial knee-jerk reaction when I finished this book and had to give a rating on the Bookmory app was 4.5 ⭐. But I sat on it for a few days before I sat down to write the review. I also read some of the reviews on the book, and I started finding that I agreed more with the negative reviews than I did the raving ones, which had me rethinking my initial rating. The first thing that kept coming up in my head was why? Why did that book end the way that it did? I’m not one who feels like all books need a happy ending, but if it doesn’t, it needs to serve a greater purpose by not having one. In the case of this book, I just couldn’t see one. From this point on, there will be spoilers, so you have been warned.

Dominic (Dom) has taken his 3 children to the island of Shearwater to escape his memories and grief over the death of his wife. His wife died giving birth to the youngest, Orly, who at the start of this novel is, I believe, 8 or 9 years old. So they’ve been there a while. The island is home to a seed bank, with its own team of researchers responsible for sorting and protecting the seeds. At the beginning of the novel, all but 4 of the researchers have left the island. Over the course of the book, we learn of events that have happened on the island. One of the researchers, Hank, who is the FMC’s (Rowan) estranged husband, has been sleeping with Dom’s only daughter, Fen. When she reveals to him that she may be pregnant, he attacks her, attempting to drown her in the ocean. Raff, her brother, and his “boyfriend” come upon the scene and stop him. Dom beats the shit out of him, and they agree to lock him up at the seed bank so that he can’t hurt Fen again.

Later, Raff and his boyfriend, Alex, decide to spend their first night together to celebrate Raff’s 18th birthday. Alex’s brother Tom warns them it isn’t a good idea because a large storm is blowing in, but as teenagers do…they did exactly what they wanted to. When the storm gets too bad, Tom and his girlfriend, Naija, go to the cabin to get them out before it gets too bad. Alex and Raff manage to get out, but Tom and Naija are swept away into the sea, drowning. Suffering from guilt, Alex commits suicide. This is implied, never stated. At the end of the book, another storm is threatening the island, and Orly, not knowing the real reason why Hank is locked up, rushes to the storage room where Hank is held to free him so that he doesn’t drown. The asshole that he is, he convinces Orly to get inside the storage room, telling him, “Your dad is on his way to get you.” When Rowan and Dom discover that Orly has gone back, they rush back to find him. Rowan manages to get into the storage room while Dom attempts to open the welded shut door on the other side of the room. Rowan gives her last breath to save Orly and drowns. Meanwhile, escapee Hank finds Fen and tries to attack her, yet again! But she manages to push him out into the ocean, where he floats away, hopefully to die a horrible, slow death being eaten by a shark or something! The ship finally arrives the next day to take the family and the remaining seeds off the island, Dom vowing to bury Rowan on her land.

So I ask this…what was the freaking purpose of Rowan drowning?! After everything that these poor children have been through, and Rowan for that matter, just to have her drown?!?! Whyyyy? Would it have been so bad to just let her live? She never wanted children, yet she ends up falling in love with these children, and fantasizes about having a life with them and Dom. They fall in love with her just as much, all needing the love of a woman/mother. Just…why? It really pissed me off. Is this just to show that women are supposed to give up everything for everyone else, including sacrificing their lives? That’s what Dom’s wife decided when she was giving birth to Orly. And now Rowan gave her life to save Orly again? I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing; I just didn’t understand what purpose was served in this book to have Rowan also die.

Maybe we will drown or burn or starve one day, but until then we get to choose if we’ll add to that destruction or if we will care for each other.

Overall, the more that I sat and thought about this book, the more unbelievable it was to me. Rowan washes onto shore in search of her husband after she has received cryptic emails from him, telling her that he’s in trouble, that someone is after him. She initially doesn’t trust Dom, but eventually does, then later finds that he’s hidden her husband’s items. Dom gives her bullshit stories that she doesn’t believe, and she STILL ends up sleeping with him, and falling in love with him!!! I’m sorry, but what?!

And I am seriously getting tired of the “lack of communication” trope for conflict in books. I get it. Humans are inherently not great at communicating. It’s the basis for many conflicts throughout history. But the lack of communication in this book goes beyond believable. Dom is never truly honest with Rowan about her husband Hank, and it makes no sense why. Why couldn’t he just tell her…your husband went crazy because of isolation, he slept with my teenage daughter, then tried to kill her, so we currently have him locked up in a storage room until the boat arrives to get the seeds, and we can get him off the island. Then he could even take her to see that he’s telling the truth, he’s alive, just contained. Then she wouldn’t have her doubts that they murdered him. And Dom claims to not know how to talk to his daughter, so he just lets her run wild and free, sleeping down on a beach amongst the seals and penguins. Dude!!! She’s been sleeping with a 40-year-old man; she’s only 17! He attacked her and tried to kill her! And you don’t think that maybe she needs to be comforted? Maybe she needs a grown-up to make her feel safe? But because you don’t know how to talk to her…you just let her do her own thing?!

The book wasn’t all bad. I did enjoy the little bit of mystery and how the story unfolded, learning what really happened with Hank. I really liked how Rowan grows to care about the children, and they grow to love her. I thought the plot with the whales was heartwarming. Did the momma whale really try to save/not fall on them? Who knows! But it was nice that they later returned the favor and rushed to save the beached whales.

So overall, I ended up downgrading my rating to 3 ⭐. Has anyone else ever done that? Initially thought a book had a certain rating, but later, after thinking it over, you either demoted it or gave it something higher. I have to wonder how much my own thoughts influenced me, or was it the reviews that I read? I’ll never know.