Charlotte McConaghy: Wild Dark Shore

Speaker 10:00

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Charlotte McConaghy· Guest0:13

Maybe it's Maybelline.

Jack Edwards· Host0:15

[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome back to The Inklings Book Club podcast. My name is Jack Edwards. I will be your host for today, and in this episode of The Inklings Book Club podcast, we are joined by Charlotte McConaghy, who is having the most incredible year. Charlotte is the author of three novels. Her first was called Migrations, then Once There Were Wolves, and now Wild Dark Shore, which was just long-listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2026. In the novel, a woman called Rowan washes up on an island called Shearwater. The sole remaining family who inhabit this island nurse her back to health. When she arrives, she is battered and bruised, and the person that she sailed to the island with has not survived the journey. This family, who continue to live on the island after everyone else has deserted it, are the father, called Dominic, and his three children. We have Orly, we have Fen, and we have Raph. Everyone in this novel is haunted by something. There are ghosts on this island. Rowan wants to understand why the family have remained on this island after everyone else has left, and the family want to understand why Rowan has sought them out. The book is atmospheric. It speaks beautifully