Wild Dark Shore: Reese's Book Club Pick (A Novel)

· Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, and Steve West
21 reviews
Audiobook
9 hr 58 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

A Reese's Book Club pick and a 2026 Audie Awards finalist for Audiobook of the Year!

This program features multicast narration.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • #1 AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR 2025


An ENTHRALLING new novel from the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves

"A WILDLY TALENTED writer."
―Emily St. John Mandel
“SPELLBINDING...Exceptionally imagined, thoroughly humane.” —Washington Post
“Abounds with EVOCATIVE nature writing.” —The New York Times Book Review

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. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all 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.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.

"This contemplative, heart-wrenching story is a unique and engaging listening experience made even more vibrant by its narration.” —Bookpage (Starred Review)

"The ensemble narration brings this intense story to life.” —AudioFile

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

A Reese's Book Club pick and a 2026 Audie Awards finalist for Audiobook of the Year! This program features multicast narration. INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • #1 AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR 2025 An ENTHRALLING new novel from the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of Migrations and ...

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Ratings and reviews

21 reviews
Candise Henry
January 8, 2026
The book itself was 5 stars and my 3-star review is for the audiobook only. The narrator for Dom was horrible. His voice was low in a way that made the last 2-3 words of every sentence a whisper, so I could barely understand anything he was saying. His imitation of women's voices was borderline insulting with how ditzy she sounded. I almost stopped listening to the book multiple times because Dom's chapters were so painful to get through.
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Amie Sweeney
February 26, 2026
The audiobook was fantastic. Book club fiction/mystery is typically not my style but every once in a while I give into the hype and am pleasantly surprised. Arguably one of the most atmospheric books I’ve ever read, I could almost feel the spray from the ocean hitting me in the face while I listened. On top of that, it was just a generally interesting topic to learn about while an engaging story was told.
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Ari
September 27, 2026
I listened to this as an audiobook experience, which was very well done. Props to the voice tallent. They did an amazing job. Overall, upon reflecting on it, I feel like I wanted more out of this story. It started really strong. I had high hopes for where it would go, and it held my interest and investment for quite some time. I can't think of any major plot developments that I didn't see coming, but their reveals and timing with the characters were often unexpected, which made the experience feel a little more fresh. I feel the ending really fell flat for me, though. My pros catagory for the novel lies mostly with the characters. I found them interesting and peculiar in their own ways. Each person felt distinct, and the relationships between them mostly felt believably complicated (with the exception of the romance, which felt far too predictable and quickly developed to me.) My cons revolve a lot around the ending, how it was handled, which was mostly rushed and unsatisfying
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About the author

Charlotte McConaghy is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations, which are being translated into more than twenty languages. She is based in Sydney, Australia.
Charlotte McConaghy is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations, which are being translated into more than twenty languages. She is based in Sydney, Australia.

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