Charlotte McConaghy
"Wild Dark Shore" - 2025
#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.
I have never heard of this book, or even this author. So, no surprise that I haven't read the starter book. But, here is the description:
"A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.
Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together."
Since today we have a word that leads me to another book, I shall go back to the good old system of using words (which I haven't been able to do since November 2025). I like it because I can come up with lots of different topics.
So, we'll start with the word "Wild".
Sendak, Maurice "Where The Wild Things Are" - 1963
Civardi, Anne; Cartwright, Stephen "Things People Do" - 1986
Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book" - 2008
Pamuk, Orhan "The Black Book" (TR: Kara Kitap) - 1990
Oates, Joyce Carol "Black Girl/White Girl" - 2006
Storm, Theodor "The Rider on the White Horse" (aka The Dikegrave/The Dykemaster) (GE: Der Schimmelreiter) - 1888
The connection between the first and the last book? They both take place at the seashore, there is rough weather, a storm and secrets.
