Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConghy
An island, one family who lives on it, and a woman washes ashore.
Sounds intriguing right?
This book had me locked in! You hear me?? LOCKED IN! I popped this audiobook on before going on a walk and kept my headphones on for a solid 5 hours just listening to this book.
First off though, bravo to the narrators of this audiobook: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, and Steve West. Their voices were so captivating and atmospheric. They all did a superb job!
Okay now for the story. Who is this family? Why they living on a remote island? Who is this woman? And how the hell she end up on this remote island??
This story slowly rolls out to answer all of these questions.
The family? Well they are a family of 4, single father living with his two sons and one daughter. He is very protective and cold. The children are all loveable characters all clearly dealing with the grief of loosing their mother in various ways. Why they on the island? They are the last care takers of a seed vault that is on the island.
And who is this woman? She’s looking for someone.
I loved the slow pace of this story. I was suspicious of everyone! (Emmarae everyone?? even the kids??YES) I needed to know the answers and I was suspecting this being a murder mystery for a long time.
I know it’s kind of annoying for when people say “I’m not gonna tell you any more! tee-hee” but for real I’m not gonna tell you any more. Because the way this author created such an intense environment while moving pretty slowly through this story was just incredible. I see why it was some peoples top read of the year last year. I will tell you that grief is at the forefront of this story. Each chapter your heart goes out for another character. You fully understand them and where they are coming from and why they are making the decisions they are making. At the end of this novel I was crying big tears. Had to have my husband hold me while I cried out in between sniffles “it was such a good story!”.
If you read this and wanna chat specifics you’ll have to find me on BlueSky haha we can chat there.
