In her remarkable novels that confront the realities of climate change and environmental destruction, Charlotte McConaghy (Once There Were Wolves) insists on hope despite the darkness. With Wild Dark Shore, the talented Australian writer takes readers to the fictional Shearwater Island. Shearwater is a haunted place, recently home to a research station, a global seed vault, and the Salt family, who serve as caretakers of the island. With rising tides reclaiming the land, Shearwater has been decommissioned, and Dominic and his three children are preparing for departure when 17-year-old Fen pulls from the water a nearly-drowned woman named Rowan.
Rowan's arrival changes everything, especially coming at a moment already full of uncertainty and loss for the Salt family. The narrative alternates between characters, deepening and complicating the reader's understanding of what happened in the days before Rowan washed up on shore. As she bonds with this unusual family, Rowan must reckon with her past and consider alternatives to a desolate future.
Her grim assumptions are warranted in the face of fire, drought, and species loss. But nine-year-old Orly, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the seeds in the vault and the life they promise, becomes the beacon of hope that might prompt more to adopt Dominic's stance: "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." Wild Dark Shore asks readers to keep making that choice, to note, as eldest child Raff does: "There is such peril in loving things at all, and... he just keeps on doing it." --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian