Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is currently hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and explain why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Blurb from Goodreads

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.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Technically, it is already Tuesday. Nevertheless, I hope everyone had a great start to the workweek. Yes, I know. Monday again. Mondays are not everyone’s cup of tea, or maybe coffee. I am no exception. Still, I hope you all had a restful weekend in preparation for this new workweek. The past two days have been quite damp here in the Philippines; a super typhoon just passed by the northern tip of the country. As such, I hope everyone is keeping safe and dry. Viewed from a different perspective, Mondays are windows of opportunity to start afresh. It is a chance to work on our goals; ironically, the start is often the most difficult part. With this, I hope everyone is starting or has started the workweek on a high note. I hope everyone makes it through – or survives – the workweek. I wish you all the best for the week ahead.

Time does fly fast. Just like that, the ninth month of the year is nearly over. In a couple of days, we will be welcoming the tenth month of the year. On the brighter side, the ghost month is already done. This is good news. With time is taking its natural course, I hope everything is going well for everyone. With September approaching its inevitable close, I hope that the rest of the month will be gentle to everyone. I hope that as 2025 moves forward, everyone is showered with blessings, positivity, healing, and growth. I hope good news and kindness will come knocking on everyone’s doors in the coming months. I wish success and blessings for everyone. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in mind, body, and spirit.

In September, I still pursued works of European literature, although this three-month journey will conclude this month. The primary driver for this foray into European literature is my ongoing reading challenges. I realized that several of the books I listed in my reading challenges are works of European literature. My current read, Ian McEwan’s Booker Prize-winning novel Amsterdam, is part of my 2025 Top 25 Reading List; this is the fifth novel written by the British writer I read. This also means that I am about to complete all works of European literature in my reading challenges. I will then shift my focus on the remaining books in my reading challenges. Anyway, for this weekly update, I am featuring Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, Wild Dark Shore.

With the year about to draw to a close, I have been looking for the books literary pundits refer to as the best of the year. One of the titles, albeit obscurely, is Wild Dark Shore. I am no stranger to the Australian writer; her debut adult novel, Migrations, was part of my 2021 Books I Look Forward To list. It was a thought-provoking and insightful read about the slow and painful disintegration of both humanity and nature. I liked the book although I had to hold back on McConaghy’s other works; there are a lot of good books out there. Nonetheless, Wild Dark Shore captured my interest. Although it seems to share some similar elements as Migrations – the novel is set in a tiny village not far from Antarctica – Wild Dark Shore seem to offer a different dimension of McConaghy’s prose. While Migrations had a layer of adventure, McConaghy’s latest novel has a layer of mystery.

Speaking of. McConaghy is an Australian writer and one of the writers who is being considered – at least by bettors – to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature is Gerald Murnane. It is kind of interesting because my foray into the works of Australian writers is quite sparse. For now, I hope I get to obtain a copy of the book, or at least that it is readily available here in the Philippines. How about you, fellow reader? How was your Monday? What books have you added to your reading list? Do drop it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday and, as always, happy reading!