Wild Dark Shore

Wild Dark Shore (2025) by bestselling speculative fiction author Charlotte McConaghy is the story of a family on an isolated island coping with trauma when a mysterious woman washes ashore. Set on the fictional Shearwater Island, inspired by the real-life Macquarie Island near Antarctica, and told through shifting perspectives, the novel deals with the challenges of Ethical Action in the Face of Climate Change, as well as Complex Bonds Between Family Members and the Interconnectivity of Life and Death. Charlotte McConaghy is the author of the bestselling Migrations (2020), which also deals with human responses to anthropogenic climate change in the near future.

This guide refers to the 2025 Flatiron Books Kindle edition of Wild Dark Shore.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of suicidal ideation, mental illness, child death, death by suicide, sexual harassment, graphic violence, death, illness, cursing, animal death, substance use, sexual content, and physical abuse.

Plot Summary

Dominic Salt and his three children, Raff, Fen, and Orly, live on Shearwater Island near Antarctica. The island is home to the Shearwater Island Seed Vault, which holds seeds from all over the world. The unique ecosystem is teeming with wildlife, particularly seals, penguins, and whales. They have lived there since Dominic’s wife, Claire, died giving birth to their youngest son, Orly. Dominic is haunted by the death of his wife, making him taciturn and withdrawn. Also located on the island is a scientific camp that hosted researchers from a variety of fields, though these scientists have departed by the time the novel opens. 

The narrative begins with a woman named Rowan unexpectedly arriving on the island. It is later revealed that her husband, a biologist named Hank Jones, came to the island after leaving her. They had lived in the Australian Outback, and their home was destroyed in a massive brushfire. Unable to cope with the loss, Hank took the job on Shearwater Island. While he was there, the seed vault began to fail, and the scientific camp was deemed unlivable due to rising sea levels. Hank—along with brothers Alex and Tom and Tom’s girlfriend, Naija—was left behind with the Salt family to pack up the seeds that would be sent to another, smaller seed vault. The other seeds were to be left behind for destruction. Hank was tasked with sorting the seeds, so when Orly took an interest in the work, he began spending a lot of time with Hank. He was the first to notice that the enormity of the task had caused Hank to begin experiencing psychotic delusions. Around this time, Hank had sex with 17-year-old Fen—the text makes it ambiguous whether Fen wanted to have sex or not.

Hank’s psychosis worsened. Fearing that if anyone found out, Hank would be pulled off the job and the task of saving the seeds abandoned, Orly broke all the communication equipment on the island. Soon after, Fen confronted Hank with her fears that she was pregnant. In response, Hank attempted to drown her. Raff and Alex, who were in a relationship, saw the assault. They locked Hank in one of the cabins, and Dominic beat Hank badly. Because they could not radio for assistance, they locked Hank in a storage room of the seed vault.

Soon after, Alex and Raff celebrated Raff’s 18th birthday by spending the night together in one of the cabins that had been condemned due to the threat of rising water levels. A storm came in, and Tom and Naija went to the cabin to warn Alex and Raff. Alex and Raff made it back to shore, but Tom and Naija were swept off their boat by the waves and drowned. Alex hanged himself out of guilt soon after. The Salt family buried the bodies on the island.

A few weeks later, Rowan left the Australian mainland and went to Shearwater. She was concerned about emails that Hank, her husband, had sent her asking for help. As the novel begins, her boat shipwrecks offshore, and she floats to the beach of the island on some driftwood. Fen rescues her and, after she heals, Rowan begins to investigate her husband’s disappearance, knowing nothing of the above events. Dominic reassures her that Hank left with the other scientists when the island was evacuated, but Rowan is suspicious of him. Over time, Rowan bonds with Dominic and the Salt children, especially Orly. She learns about what happened to Tom, Naija, and Alex. She goes to the seed vault with them, where she notices that the concrete wall is water-damaged and starting to give way. She warns it may not hold for five more weeks, when the ship intended to evacuate the Salt family and transport the seeds is scheduled to arrive.

While Raff and Rowan are returning from an investigative trip at the scientific base to the lighthouse at the tip of the island where the family lives, a breaching whale capsizes their boat. Raff sustains a wrist injury, and Rowan nearly drowns. When she wakes up in the field hospital, Dominic and Rowan give in to their feelings for one another and start a relationship. Rowan warns Dominic that the seed vault is near failure, so she and the family throw themselves into saving whatever seeds they can. One day, while heading to the vault, the family comes upon the whale that capsized Raff and Rowan’s boat; she is beached on the shore alongside her calf. They work all day to save the whales and get them back out to the ocean. 

The next day, Rowan investigates the seed vault on her own. She has realized that Hank would not have left before the task of sorting the seeds was finished. She finds Hank in the storage room in the vault. He asks her to return later to set him free and warns her that Dominic is not to be trusted. That afternoon, a storm comes in and the seed vault nearly fails while the Salts and Rowan are working. They evacuate the area quickly, but Rowan and Dominic resolve to return with tools to save Hank from the storage room before he drowns. Too late, they realize that they have left Orly behind: He has gone to save Hank himself. However, after Orly opens the storage room, Hank escapes and then locks Orly inside. 

Rowan and Dominic rush to save Orly. While Dominic is working to open the escape hatch, Rowan gets in through a tunnel as the water rises. Rowan gives the last of her breath to Orly to save him and then dies. Dominic attempts CPR, but it is too late. Meanwhile, Hank sneaks to the boathouse where Fen lives. He attacks her, but she pushes him into the ocean, where he is swept away in the storm. Fen is almost swept away, too, but Raff reaches her in time and rescues her.

The next day, the ship arrives to evacuate the Salts from the island along with the seeds they have saved. Dominic resolves to take Rowan’s body back to her land in the Outback to bury her. The family leaves the island.