Wild Dark Shore

Wild Dark Shore is about a man, Dominic Salt, and his three kids (Raff, Fen and Orly) who are living on Shearwater, a remote island near Antarctica where Dominic is the caretaker of the world's largest seed bank. The island is being shut down is due to sea level rise and increased storminess, while the family is packing up the remaining seeds for their move. When the worst storm the island has ever experienced washes up a badly injured woman named Rowan, their already strained and isolated life is forever altered. The family takes her in, and suspicions abound on both sides. Rowan doesn't tell the truth about why she has come to Shearwater and Dominic has obviously been hiding something about what has been happening on the island. As the power goes out and the weather worsens, and the supply ship remains distant, the story turns into a survivalist thriller, a family melodrama and a mystery as to why everyone is there in the first place.

The novel is very structured, and the tension is built up, not through action, but through a gradual flow. The start is very good, as it already feels like it's on the verge of falling apart before anything really goes wrong. The island's empty of everyone but the Salts, the seed vault is running out of power and the storm that lands Rowan on the island makes it obvious just how dangerous Shearwater can be. The suspense is heightened by the fact that there is a shift in perspective between Dominic, Fen and Rowan, who know different things and have differing degrees of trust in each other. The pacing is slow at the beginning, but it's interesting because it's the situation itself that's threatening, the turbines are failing, the research station is flooded, and the family have been under pressure for a long time.

The pacing is not as steady in the middle. Much attention is given to grief, to memories, to the past, particularly to Dominic and his memories of his wife Claire and the circumstances that brought the family to the island and Rowan to her memories of the disaster that brought her to Shearwater. These pieces weigh down the emotional impact but also dampen the tension that the story establishes at the beginning. Sometimes, it seems as if the plot doesn't progress and the characters are just contemplating all the things that have gone wrong in their lives. The romance between Rowan and Dominic was also somewhat rushed compared to the amount of suspicion that exists between them, and it didn't always seem natural, considering the amount of secrets that both have.

When the mysteries begin to fall into place, the structure becomes strengthened once again. As Rowan starts to suspect that there's been something amiss with the radios, she also suspects that something has gone wrong in the abandoned bunkers, and that Dominic isn't telling her the truth about the island. Meanwhile, the practical issues continue to mount, as the power goes out, the storms intensify and the viability of the seeds is questioned. The tension is best when the story is about survival and trust, as the isolation will amplify the significance of each decision. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars because the pacing in the middle, and some of the character development kept it from being as good as it could have been, but the setup and atmosphere are great.

It was the ending that didn't work the most with me. The story was very emotionally and physically charged, and the ending was more disappointing than satisfying. I didn't feel like this ending was natural, but rather a tragedy on top of everything that had befallen the characters. I wanted more, the last move the story did was disappointing and I felt like there was more that should have been done to get there. Despite that, the book is still worth reading just for the setting. McConaghy's depiction of nature and isolation is very good and the cold, stormy island, its seals, penguins and deserted research stations are certainly the most memorable elements of the story.