Editor Note: Alli is back!! Should I be concerned that her reviews have so many more views than mine? Hey, it’s all about the team, the team, the team, right? Rising tides raise all ships and all that.
Set in a climate-disparaged future, widower Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of the brutally remote near-Antarctic Shearwater Island, which houses one of the world’s last seed vaults.
Once buzzing with researchers, Shearwater has become desolate due to rising sea levels. Meanwhile, Rowan sets sail for Shearwater alone after a series of cryptic messages from her semi-estranged botanist husband who worked there, but accidently (and dramatically) washes ashore after her boat crashes in a storm.
Despite mutual skepticism, Rowan and the Salt family must learn to overcome the toll that the world has taken on them.
This book is generally dark and sad. Some moments of jumpy paranoia that felt inconsistent with the otherwise deep introspection kept this book from achieving excellence for me personally.
The tension between fragility of the human species and depths of our instincts to survive/persist does pay off though, and some moving commentary on parenting, trust, and hope make this story satisfying overall.
Written by Allison
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

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