Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

WILD DARK SHORE by Charlotte McConaghy was the #1 IndieNext pick for March 2025 as well as a LibraryReads selection. Called harrowing, the story certainly offers a feeling of isolation and menace. It is set near Antarctica on Shearwater Island, the site of a global seed vault, and home to Dom Salt and his children teens Raff and Fen, and 10-year-old Orly, all of whom have come to love and cherish the local wildlife (e.g., whales, seals, penguins). The family is scheduled to be leaving the island soon as rising waters have imperiled the research facilities housed there. As they wait for evacuation by ship, another small boat is wrecked, and a stranger, Rowan, is washed ashore. Readers learn of connections to the island and will begin to have suspicions regarding the family members who, along with their new visitor, provide narration and conflicting points of view. Book groups will find much to discuss as one becomes increasingly engaged and concerned for the island and its inhabitants. McConaghy does an excellent job of maintaining tension and slowly revealing secrets; the action really picks up near the end. WILD DARK SHORE received starred reviews from Booklist (“complexly plotted, tragic, and all-consuming tale of the battle to survive in a catastrophically changing world”) and Library Journal (“a race against time tests each person's love and loyalty”).