Lover of Penguins? Seals? Mystery? You Must Read the Novel, Wild Dark Shore

Climate-fiction at its best!

I once dreamed of being a lighthouse keeper on a lonely coast watching the water, observing the birds, smelling seawater and experiencing - firsthand - a storm roll across the waves. At other times, I imagined staying a winter in a Montana cabin...(provided I had electricity and internet) where I would spend frigid months wrapped in big sweaters, reading, writing, and immersing myself in creative thought. I'm not sure if I'm weird, or if it's my writer's brain always ready to turn inward and play by itself.

So it's no surprise that a book about a family on an isolated island, caretakers of a global seed bank and observers of a harsh but stunning natural environment filled with penguins and seals, grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go.

I think it will grab yours, too!

Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore wrapped itself around me and squeezed. Tension, excitement, curiosity, empathy, wonder, and fear oozed out of me as the pages and plot of this novel dug into my psyche.

The plot of Wild Dark Shore

Dominic Salt took his three young children to Shearwater Island eight years ago after the death of his wife. Orly, the youngest, has never known his mother. Fen, the seventeen-year-old daughter, chooses to spend her days swimming and hanging out on the beach with the seals. Raff, the oldest son, is quiet, musical, and burdened with sadness.

Shearwater Island (fictional, but based on the real Macquarie Island) is located between Antarctica and Tasmania. Make no mistake. This is not a quiet, deserted tropical island with warm sands and balmy breezes. Rather, it's a stormy, cold, barely habitable land once sparsely populated with scientists who ran research facilities, studied the changing environment, and maintained a global seed vault intended to reforest the world in case of an apocalyptic event.

Sadly, the environmental changes that the scientists were studying become a reality. As temperatures rise, the melting ice floods the island. The labs and living conditions are unsafe, so the scientists abandon the island, leaving the priceless seeds under the protection of the Salt family who will stay for more six weeks, caring for and closing down the facilities.

But the plot thickens!

The dynamics of the Salt Family change drastically when Rowan, a young woman and lone survivor of a shipwreck, washes up on shore, badly injured and in need of help.

Dominic Salt is still grieving his wife, nine years after her death. He chose a life of solitude and hard work when he signed on to be the overseer and maintenance man for the scientific laboratories on the island, taking his children with them. Dominic's tasks are to keep the research facilities safe and the non-working lighthouse functional since it serves as the family's home.

Raff, Fen, and Orly take classes online but have the time and freedom to study and explore independently. The freedom to learn about what they love makes each of the children an expert in a field. Raff studies whale song and incorporates it into his music. Fen knows everything about the seal colonies. Orly is savant-like in his knowledge of plants. The entire Salt family cares for the island after the small cohort of scientists leaves the island.

The Salts fight to maintain their home in deteriorating conditions. An even more difficult task is to decide which seeds should be saved, since space and time limit their ability to save them all. The task falls to the nine-year-old, Orly, raised on the island and who has studied plants and botany with the intensity given to geniuses.

Sprinkle in dangerous secrets and burgeoning emotions

Dangerous secrets and burgeoning emotions are sprinkled into the crisis of a water-logged island and a family caring for a wounded woman.

Who was this woman, and why would she wash up on Shearwater Island...unless, of course, she had chartered a boat to get there in the first place?

Why does Rowan ask so many questions? Why did the island's communication system go haywire when the scientists left? Why is Raff mourning? Why does Fen choose the company of seals instead of her family? What happens when Dominic and his children bond with a mysterious stranger who becomes a mother figure to the kids and a possible lover for the dad?

Have you heard of Cli-Fi?

Most writers and readers know the term Sci-Fi, short for science fiction. Similarly, Cli-Fi is the abbreviation for Climate Fiction, stories based on what happens to the world when the climate changes. The term was coined by a journalist named Dan Bloom in 2007 or 2008 and popularized in 2012 when Bloom published a book called Polar City Red.

The first Climate Fiction novel I remember identifying was American War by Omar El Akkad, published in 2017. The premise was that both coasts had disintegrated and become unstable, pushing millions of people into the Midwest. An American Civil War had broken out over the issue of fossil fuels. I read the novel six years ago, so the details are blurry in my mind, but the issue of a changing land because of climate change stuck with me.

Many writers in the past twenty years have expounded on the Climate Fiction theme. Charlotte McConaghy's new novel, Wild Dark Shore, is a GREAT example of the genre!

So many ideas to ponder...

This book wowed me. So many ideas to ponder! The issue of climate change to be sure, but so much more:

• The grieving process

• The education of children

• The power and problems of isolation

• The natural beauty of places I'll never get to (except through reading!)

• The dual states of independence and loneliness

• What people will do to find the truth

• What trauma does to the psyche

• How family dynamics affect outcomes

• What happens to precious resources when greed predominates

Reading preferences are subjective, and what floats my boat might not float yours, but I thought Wild, Dark Shore was an all-around winner!

The bonus of listening to a book

Because I work full-time and am a caregiver to my husband, my reading time is limited. But thanks to audiobooks, I listen while I'm cleaning, cooking, and mowing. Because I can listen to it, I can absorb a story that I otherwise might never get to enjoy.

The narrators in Wild Dark Shore were fantastic. The voice of Dominic Salt had a vibrant Australian accent (which I find exciting and - if I am being honest - sexy.) Plus, it made sense with the story since it was set on an island South of Australia.

However you do it, get Wild Dark Shore for a thrilling, thought-provoking ride!

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