Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McCognagy

Discussion Questions for Tonight. I'll have printouts as well.

1. Discuss Dominic’s relationships with his three children. How do they evolve over the course of the novel? What role does Rowan plays in that evolution?
2. Multiple characters are haunted in this novel: Dom by his wife, Claire; Orly by the voices of the animals killed on Shearwater over the centuries; Rowan by her little brother, River. How are their hauntings similar and different? Do you think this novel is a kind of ghost story?
3. How do you think the isolation of Shearwater affects the Salts? In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of living on the island? Do you think of Shearwater as a character in the book?
4. Dom reflects, “I never loved a place before we came here.” What does Shearwater mean to Dom? To his children? To Rowan? What is the importance of the setting to the story itself? How does that tie into the title of the book?
5. Rowan has very complicated reasons for coming to Shearwater. How do you understand her decision? Do you think it was the right thing to do?
6. Rowan reflects: “Loving a place is the same as having a child. They are both too much an act of hope, of defiance. And those are a fool’s weapons.” Why do you think she feels that way? Does her view change over the course of the novel? If so, how and why?
7. Why do you think Fen decides to burn her mother’s possessions? Do you sympathize with her actions? How do the different characters in this novel relate to Claire’s memory? Even though she dies long before the novel begins, do you consider her to be a character in the story?
8. As the seed bank is closing, the Salts are supposed to be saving the seeds that could help protect humans in the future, including important crops. But Orly decides to go rogue and save instead the seeds that he finds the most beautiful and unusual. Do you think one approach is “right”? Discuss.
9. Do you consider this novel to have a happy ending, or at least a hopeful one? Why or why not?

Switching over to BookShop SC's Winter Reading Program this will be the first of three from this list. Read three and receive a $5 gift card to Bookshop Santa Cruz, a cookie from Pacific Cookie Company, and a complimentary tasting flight at the downtown Santa Cruz Birichino Tasting Room.

About the book:

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.