Wild Dark Shore - by Charlotte McConaghy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK - INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - #1 AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR 2025

"A breathtaking novel of ROMANCE, MYSTERY, AND TWISTS that will shock you...I love this book so much." --Reese Witherspoon
"A WILDLY TALENTED writer." ―Emily St. John Mandel
"SPELLBINDING...Exceptionally imagined, thoroughly humane." --Washington Post
"Abounds with EVOCATIVE nature writing." --The New York Times Book Review

An ENTHRALLING new novel from the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves

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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Wild Dark Shore

Instant New York Times Bestseller
Instant Indie Bestseller
Instant USA Today Bestseller
Instant Washington Post Bestseller
Instant Los Angeles Times Bestseller

A Best Book of the Year (NPR, TIME, Kirkus, BookRiot, She Reads, Chicago Public Library)
#1 IndieNext Pick
Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlist
Book of the Month Club Selection
Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee
Reese's Book Club Pick
New York Times Book Review Book Club Pick
Reader's Digest Book Club Pick

"A breathtaking novel of romance, mystery, and twists that will shock you...I love this book so much."
--Reese Witherspoon

"Spellbinding...Captivating...McConaghy keeps the novel moving at a blustery pace, thanks to her deft plotting and shared point of view...To read this exceptionally imagined, thoroughly humane novel feels like following the last people on Earth as they prepare to leave some part of their souls to the most beautiful place they'll ever know."
--Washington Post

"Vivid...Moving...Wild Dark Shore abounds with evocative nature writing...We're shown why a person might withdraw from the messiness of life after tragedy and trauma...The novel also offers its injured characters a path back to connection and community, a risk McConaghy argues must be worth taking, no matter how fraught the future."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Wild Dark Shore is a thrilling page-turner, but all the action and suspense disguise something deeper: a beautiful meditation on love, loss and resilience in the face of climate change."
--NPR

"McConaghy has become a singular author of our moment, writing climate fiction that is packed with rich humanity, at its best and worst. Her newest will break your heart into little pebbly pieces, and I mean that as the highest of compliments."
--BookRiot

"A gripping tale...With a breathtaking setting and characters you'll love, Wild Dark Shore is a suspenseful and moving must-read."
--Reader's Digest

"I fell in love with every, single character."
--People Magazine

"A haunting tale of ruined lives and glimmers of redemption."
--TIME

"Look no further if you're searching for a thriller that reads like top-class literary fiction. Written in sparse, haunting prose, Wild Dark Shore features characters so clearly drawn, you'll feel as if you're stuck on fictional Shearwater Island with them."
--Marie Claire

"Charlotte McConaghy, the author of the fantastic Migrations and Once There Were Wolves, delivers yet another page-turner set in the wilderness, making readers grapple with climate change and what you would do to survive."
--Town & Country

"A suspenseful, rushing read, full of short chapters, emotional twists, and a landscape it's all too easy to sink into and live in. Wild Dark Shore is an exceptional book that hands readers a bittersweet helping of sorrow and joy, sounding a clarifying call towards a symbiotic survival that prioritizes our need to do more than simply subsist: to put trust in each other and in the nature that surrounds us."
--Chicago Review of Books

"Gripping... A thriller promising a unique premise, complex characters, and an atmospheric setting, Wild Dark Shore is a must-read this March."
--ScreenRant

"From the first page, McConaghy creates an intriguing maelstrom of uncertainty...McConaghy is a master who ignites both my intellect and emotions. Her characters have great depth and credibility; the wild settings are described with detail and delicacy that make her writing so beautiful. Her passion for nature illuminates her writing. McConaghy's plots are not optimistic, but still somehow they are hopeful, and leave me feeling enriched, satisfied, even inspired."
--The Denver Post

"Riveting... McConaghy's descriptions of nature's glory and terror are galvanic, the psychological struggles wrenching, the suspenseful action spectacularly choreographed. McConaghy has attained new heights of intensity and lacerating ecological conviction in this complexly plotted, tragic, and all-consuming tale of the battle to survive."
--Booklist (starred review)

"[A] terrific thriller...McConaghy keeps readers guessing...McConaghy writes about both nature and human frailty with eloquent generosity. Readers won't want to leave behind the imagined world of pain and beauty that McConaghy has conjured."
--Kirkus (starred review)

"Sub-Antarctic noir meets a love letter to the rapidly disappearing wild world in McConaghy's latest...As lush as it is taut with tension, this novel is filled with both the joys and ravages of nature."
--Library Journal (starred review)

"Thought-provoking and passionately told...Wild Dark Shore asks, what will happen when we risk losing our homes and our neighbors? What will we save and what will we let go of? And how can we start again after the sea takes it all?"
--BookPage

"Urgent...McConaghy ratchets up the tension as the characters' paranoia and mutual suspicion increases and their motives are revealed...McConaghy blends entertainment with a sobering message about conservation and the impacts of geographic isolation."
--Publishers Weekly

"Remarkable...Raising issues of love and family and sacrifice, Wild Dark Shore is a beautiful examination of hope in the face of certain destruction."
--Shelf Awareness

"At once a gripping mystery, an exquisitely written ode to the natural world, and a taut, psychological thriller, Wild Dark Shore is a triumph. Charlotte McConaghy is masterful in her ability to show the intricate connections between place and the human heart, and Wild Dark Shore shows her at the height of her powers. Breathtaking."
--Hannah Kent, international bestselling author of Burial Rites

"It's a ferociously smart read, timely and poetic, and had me gripped from the very first page."
--Rachel Joyce, New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

About the Author