![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/wild-dark.jpeg\")
<\/a>When I start a thriller, I expect two things: A fairly certain goal for the protagonists, maybe saving the world from bad guys or finding a murderer. In short, what is this story about? And lots of twists \u2013 maybe the supposed bad guys are really good guys, maybe the bad guys are already one step ahead of the plan of salvation.<\/p>\n
In Charlotte McConaghy\u2019s 2025 thriller Wild Dark Shore<\/em>, there are plenty of twists, for sure. But the mystery is: What\u2019s this story about?<\/p>\n Don\u2019t take that as a negative. It\u2019s what draws you deeper into the pages, or in my case, farther along in the audiobook. I found myself stopping several times to reconsider just what the story was about: A love story, a murder mystery, an environmental dystopian narrative?<\/p>\n There\u2019s a scientific research station on an island that lies halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. It also serves as a seed vault, a bank that preserves thousands of seeds as a way of protecting earth\u2019s biodiversity.<\/p>\n The book opens with a woman somehow awash in the waters just offshore the island lighthouse. She\u2019s rescued and eventually recovers.<\/p>\n For chapters, we don\u2019t know why she is there, if she will live, why there is a family living there other than to keep the lighthouse operating, and where the research scientists went.<\/p>\n We have so many questions none of us will dare stop reading. My neighbor read the whole book in one day while sitting on her porch.<\/p>\n Part of the mystery comes from the narration of the book. The washed-up woman, Rowan; the lighthouse keeper, Dom, and his three children all tell the story as they see it. We don\u2019t know who is telling the truth, who is lying, who is merely mistaken and who else is as confused as I am.<\/p>\n One thing we do know: The island is to be evacuated because the rising ocean waters are about to swallow it. So, a relief ship is on its way; it should arrive six weeks after Rowan washes up. We also know that the rising ocean, and frequent storms, are destroying the few remaining manmade structures on the island, making the wait for the relief ship perilous.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the twist as to why the relief ship can\u2019t just come earlier. And there are twists about why the lighthouse keeper\u2019s daughter won\u2019t stay in the main living quarters but spends her nights at the beach among the island\u2019s seals. (You learn a lot about seals and whales by reading this book.)<\/p>\n And if you want an entertaining primer on seed botany, there\u2019s always the younger son, a grade schooler, who never stops talking about seeds and plants.<\/p>\n Of course, as the book progresses, we start to get a better idea of what the story is about, albeit with a few late twists.<\/p>\n I listened to the audiobook while walking or driving, which was a mistake, because road noise sometimes interfered and all the narrators are speaking with Aussie accents. So, unless you plan to listen in a quiet place, get the text version \u2013 if the line at your library isn\u2019t 55 people long, as it was at mine.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul O’Connor takes a look at a recent literary thriller by Charlotte McConaghy, a noted Australian author with a strong interest in the environment and the effects of climate change, He warns: Don’t start this book if you don’t have time to finish promptly. Reviewed by Paul T. O\u2019Connor WILD DARK SHORE. By Charlotte McConaghy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7,14],"tags":[1546,1545,1549,1547,1548],"class_list":["post-3495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-contemporary-literary-fiction","category-thriller-suspense","tag-australian-fiction","tag-charlotte-mcconaghy","tag-environmental-fiction","tag-literary-thriller","tag-wild-dark-shore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3497,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions\/3497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}