Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt is the caretaker of Shearwater, a remote island near Antarctica where he lives with his three children, Raff, Fen, and Orly. The island is mostly inhabited by seals but visiting researchers have created a vast seed bank – which would help the world replant if there were a natural disaster. Because the sea is rising, the island will soon be uninhabitable so the Salts, after many isolated years, will be forced to begin again somewhere on the mainland. If they really leave.

Dominic has complicated relationships with his three children:

You are not meant to have favorites, but my youngest is that. If only by a hair, and with a gun to my head. If I really, really had to answer. And not because we are the most alike: that is my oldest and me. Not because we are the least alike: that is my daughter and me. Maybe it is because he is curious and kind and so smart it can make your eyes water. Maybe it’s because he whispers to the wind and hears its voice in return. Most likely I don’t know why. But it may also be because, for one brief moment long ago, I wished him dead.

So there is already one mystery and more to come! After a dreadful storm, a woman washes up near the shore, her boat and pilot both smashed to pieces on the rocks, and she more dead than alive. Fen, who spends most of her time with the seals, finds her in the water and drags her in. The family nurses her back to health, and nine-year-old Orly, who has never known a mother, becomes especially attached to Rowan. Although she becomes close to all the Salts, she does not reveal the reason she came (this is not the sort of place one visits accidentally) although she tells Dom and Orly about the house she built in Australia and how it was destroyed by fire. Rowan was broken by this experience and lost interest in life. For the first time in months, however, she cares about something and begins to wonder if the Salts could be part of her recovery. But they have also been withholding information from her: the painful loss that sent them to the island, why teenage Fen lives with the seals, why there is no way to communicate with the mainland, and why all the researchers have left the island. As they wait for a rescue boat to come, the rising sea levels threaten to destroy the seed vault, and the four must put aside their differences and try to save them.

The elements of fire and water loom large over the narrative, as does the natural beauty (and danger!) of the island, which is based on an actual Australian research base called Macquarie, according to the author's note. Orly, in particular, has learned about the seeds and plants from the researchers and is determined to save them. The seals and whales are also at risk but the real question is how those on the island can also save themselves. This was a fascinating story that makes the reader feel every scrape and raw knuckle, every cold wave, and the overwhelming grief that attacks Dom and Rowan and prevents them from communicating. This is my twelfth book for the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge and I recommend it.

Title: Wild Dark Shore
Author: Charlotte McConaghy
Narrators: Saskia Maarleveld, Katherine Littrell, Cooper Mortlock, and Steve West
Publication: Macmillan, audiobook, 2025
Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Source: Library