Monday, November 2, 2026

Monday Moments - Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy


 Laundry from our Iceland trip is done. Whew! That took a bit. I'm still sorting pictures...so, patience my friends...You'll see some Northern Lights!!!  Yes - fantastic.  And also more waterfalls than you care to imagine.  Meanwhile - here's the book I read while traveling.  It's a good one. 

Dominic and his three kids are caretakers for Shearwater, a tiny island off the coast of Antarctica.  Sea levels are rising and they are packing up their life mission - the seed vault. Researchers and scientists have left. (some mysterious circumstances are hinted).  

A woman, Rowan,  washes up on shore, badly injured. Turns out she's the wife of one of the researchers.

What the heck is going on?    Sabotage.  Blood.   How many secrets are there? 

p. 168  and now there is this day. Here on a windswept, starlit hill, and I think I have found something, and the broken years fall away.        ...............I am quite certain I have found his grave.

p. 261  Orly the young lad who loves the plants, the seeds, and the stories of the island.  It's all he's known as a kid.    He's very protective of the seeds.  Here's his thoughts

The banksia will wait, and wait, and wait for this fire to come. Only with flames and smoke licking at everything around it will it open its valves and let its seeds be taken on this hot burning wind.......

which the untrained eye would look at and see death - comes life, bursting free....

McConaghy writes a very near future tale - very aware of climate change, global warnings,  all the nature concerns we have. It's also a tale of a family without a mother.  And a mysterious death? maybe. 

Wild Dark Shore is a wow of a tale and kept me hooked until the end.  Highly recommended.