Wild Dark Shore

Kristy (00:00)
Welcome to Books I Make My Husband Read, a self-described hilarious and heartfelt podcast where I, Kristy, the devoted book lover, curate an unexpected reading list for my husband, Jon.

Jon (00:11)
And that's me. In each episode, we dive into lively discussions, humorous debates, and unexpected insights on all the books Kristy just has to make me read.

Kristy (00:21)
We're here to explore everything from your book club favorites to quirky hidden gems, challenging our perspectives and inviting you to join in on the fun.

Jon (00:30)
So settle in, grab your favorite beverage, and get ready for another literary adventure.

Kristy (00:46)
Hello listeners and welcome to season five, episode two of Books That Make My Husband Read. I'm your host Kristy

Jon (00:52)
And I'm Jon I'm the co-host and the one that Kristy forces to read all of these books.

Kristy (00:57)
Force is such a strong word.

Jon (01:00)
That's what it feels like sometimes.

Kristy (01:02)
you

And other times.

Jon (01:05)
Other times I actually am excited to read, but for the most

Kristy (01:09)
Yes.

Jon (01:10)
part it feels like

Kristy (01:12)
Cause you don't get to read what you want anymore.

Jon (01:16)
We go to bookstores and we're like, Why am I even looking at this? I'm not gonna be able to read this.

Kristy (01:22)
You sign up for this.

Jon (01:24)
I know. Fine print.

Kristy (01:27)
All right, so last episode, we eased you into season five with the latest book from Abby Jimenez, but today the easing is done. week we're talking about Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy McConaghy

Jon (01:42)
We can't hear.

Kristy (01:42)
McConaghy So Charlotte writes the kind of books that make you feel like something's sitting on your chest.

And I mean that as a compliment.

Jon (01:53)
Yeah. So we listened to this book on a road trip and wa it was it was pretty heavy. It was definitely a a shift from the last episode, as you pointed out. And I almost feel even like different from even a lot of the other books you've had me read. So it should be

Kristy (02:10)
Yeah.

Jon (02:10)
an interesting conversation.

Kristy (02:12)
Yes. So why did I pick this book for Jon Well, it was on my bookshelf to read myself. I knew I wanted good mix of authors. If you followed us last season, something that Jon said he appreciated about last season's lineup was that there were some new authors in there. So this season, I made a real point to include just two authors that we had read before, but then

pick five other books that were very new and very new as far as authors go. And I think completely new to you, people you haven't read even outside of the podcast. So Charlotte McConaghy is one of those. this book was one of Reese's book of the month or however she does it list. It was the Lolly winner of the month club, is what

readers rate as the best book of the year. So it was something I knew I wanted to read based on the summary. I just thought it was something you would enjoy. And yeah, it was something that I had heard is unlike any story anyone has ever read. So I thought it would just be a great book for you and a great book to talk about on the podcast.

Jon (03:23)
Yeah, I mean you definitely diversified authors this season, which I appreciate. And this was this was a book that hit differently. and we'll get we'll get into it. So before we do, want to remind everyone listening what's coming up next in season five on the reading list. So the next two books in our lineup are The Burning Side by Sarah Damoff and Kin by Tayari Jones.

I hope I am saying that correctly.

Kristy (03:54)
Yes. So The Burning Side, I'm extremely excited for. It's actually the book I'm about to start reading next. And I read Sarah Damoff's debut novel, The Bright Years, a couple months ago and was just completely blown away by it.

I didn't even read the summary when I got this book. I just knew that I wanted to read it because her writing was so beautiful in the debut novel. I have since read the summary and what it's about. And that's why I picked it for this podcast. But I'm just really excited about the story about Sarah's writing about diving back into like her head. So that will be fun. And then

Kin by Tayari Jones is one that is new to me. think it's a historical fiction novel and

For all intents and purposes, it's about two people who start kind of in the same place and then go out on very different paths and their story and journey and trials and tribulations, I'll say.

Jon (04:52)
This Kin is about as close to me getting to pick a book as I get these days. We were at a bookstore in Michigan and you're like, out of these two books, which one would you rather read for the podcast? So

anyway, as always, y'all can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, our website, which is our the name of our podcast, so books I make my husbandread.com. And you can catch all the upcoming books from season five, you can catch all the books that Kristy's made me read from seasons one through four, and see if there's one on there that you maybe have read and and want to catch up and listen. So

Kristy (05:33)
Yes, and if you're enjoying the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It's the best free thing you can do to support us and it genuinely helps other people find our show.

Jon (05:44)
Go team. All right. Are you ready for the spoiler-free book summary? It's just a little bit like a duel, like a boxing match. anyway, spoiler-free book summary. Go.

Kristy (06:03)
Island sits near Antarctica and it is not a place you end up by accident. Dominic Salt moved his family there eight years ago when he needed a job and needed to be as far away as possible. He and his three kids, Raff Finn, and a nine-year-old Orly have been the caretakers of the island's seed bank ever since.

A vault storing thousands of plant species in case the world ever needs to start over, which given what's happening to the climate, a precaution and more like a countdown.

Jon (06:34)
The island for the most part has been evacuated. Rising seas forced researchers out and the Salt family has about six weeks left before they have to leave too. they are preparing to say goodbye to the only home Orly has ever really known, and the tension of that, what comes after, what they're leaving behind, is already running underneath everything. And then a storm hits and a woman washes ashore.

Kristy (07:00)
Her name is Rowan She's bloodied, barely alive, and not interested in explaining how she got there. The Salt's nurse her back to health, and Orly, who never knew his mother, becomes immediately, completely attached. Dominic tries to stay guarded, but he is not entirely successful.

Jon (07:18)
Wild Dark Shore is a book about what it costs to survive, what you carry, what you protect, and what you're willing to do when the world you built for your family is about to disappear.

it is also about a mysterious stranger with secrets on a remote island near Antarctica, which sounds like a very different kind of book, and somehow Charlotte McConaghy makes both of those things true at the same time.

Well folks, storms are coming and the seed vault's about to crack open with all the spoilers. So if you don't want to get any of them wet, skedaddle. Get out of here. come back after you've read the book.

Kristy (08:00)
All right. Let's talk about what we thought about the book. I went first last time, so give me your thoughts.

Jon (08:06)
I would say my thoughts revolve primarily that this book has a lot of loss in it. And it's a very honest kind of look at what loss does to a person. I thought the slow burn of this one was

appropriate, maybe for lack of a better word. and I loved her writing and how she sort of involved the world.

Kristy (08:33)
Was it a slow burn or

given the scene, was it actually frostbite?

Jon (08:41)
How long were you holding on to that one? you just taught him that one? Good job.

Kristy (08:43)
I just thought of it. Yes.

fit. They're in it. All right. They're very close to Antarctica.

Jon (08:53)
That's funny. That was a good one.

Kristy (08:56)
I told you before I have original thoughts.

Jon (09:00)
I loved how she sort of wrapped the world around the characters in the story, which I feel is maybe unique for this kind of book. Like like you kind of expect world

building for lack of a better phrase in fantasy novels or science fiction novels where worlds

Kristy (09:15)
Hmm.

Jon (09:16)
that aren't real and so you have to sort of do

a fair amount of storytelling to picture that and I think like a remote island off of Antarctica probably feels very similar to that in that not a lot of people have been there. They probably can't really fully fathom what that environment is really like. And so I appreciated how she sort of wrote that into the piece. But I liked it. I think I would give it four

out of five stars for me on this one and those are my thoughts.

Kristy (09:51)
I agree about the atmosphere and the setting. mean, the author just does a really brilliant job of making you understand the stakes and what the family is having to go through and deal with and things that very different to us as people who live in like the climate and region that we live in.

and what this family has to face like on a daily basis as far as like.

I don't know, using the bathroom and dealing with a whale falling, yeah, sleeping and

Jon (10:24)
Sleeping and

Kristy (10:26)
dealing with a whale falling on like one of their boats. I yeah. Yeah.

Jon (10:30)
And just rations and like how,

you know, you everything like you can't just go to the market to get something, you run out of it. Like if you run out of it, you run out of it. So

Kristy (10:37)
Right. You're done with it,

And like having two minute showers and thinking about water, saving water. I agree on the four stars. That's what I gave it as well. I will say that since you already mentioned we listened to this together on a road trip and we did like half of it on the way there and the second half on the way back, I do feel like the break

affected my experience of the story. But I'll also say that am not a person who needs a happy ending. I mean, if I'm reading a romance and I don't get a happy ending, not happy about that, that is like a given. But in other books, like I don't mind leaving things unanswered. I don't mind having a lot of questions. The ending for this one, which I won't say here because I have a question about it later.

I don't want to say I didn't like it, but I have thoughts about it. And I think that for me, leaned me toward like the four star rating. But I do think that this is my first book from this author. I would be very interested reading other things by her. They're also rated well. And I hear that like the prose the atmosphere that she builds, the tension, the asks these big

questions that don't have easy answers that are really complicated and I would be interested in reading that.

Jon (12:04)
Right.

Kristy (12:06)
Okay, let's move into the discussion. So as I've already mentioned, this is a very different book than what we covered in our last episode. And do you feel like going in, you had expectations and then did the book meet them, exceed them, or were you completely blindsided?

Jon (12:25)
Well, considering the only thing I knew about this book before we started it was the name of the book. I would say I was completely blindsided because I had no expectations of going into this. I didn't read the jacket, I didn't

Kristy (12:36)
Hmm.

Jon (12:37)
do anything, we're just like, Here, this is the next book up. Press play. And so

Kristy (12:42)
You're really bad at homework.

Just kidding.

Jon (12:46)
that's not an untrue story. I was actually pretty bad at homework. yeah.

Kristy (12:50)
That's another conversation. That's a different podcast.

Jon (12:54)
so I mean everything I guess would say out of your options blindsided me because I I had no expectations going into

Kristy (12:59)
Hmm.

Jon (13:00)
it. And so it w that's not bad or good. It just was sort of the nature of situation. Like I remember saying over the first few chapters, I'm like, I feel like there might be like some supernatural.

component to this book or something, the way like the first few chapters are written.

Kristy (13:17)
like a being or feeling a presence even outside of like Dominic feeling like he was talking to his ex-wife. Or sorry, white that died.

Jon (13:25)
Right, like the whole island yeah.

like the whole island had an aura or, you know,

Kristy (13:31)
Yes.

Jon (13:32)
voices on the wind and that sort of thing. And so I thought there would be like a supernatural component to it, which there wasn't, but there is definitely a

Kristy (13:42)
It was part of the atmosphere.

Jon (13:44)
Yeah. Not yes. I don't think supernatural is the right word, but there is definitely like I I guess the way I would sort of dis

Kristy (13:51)
nature.

Jon (13:52)
describe it is just thinking of like the way indigenous people think about their world and their surroundings, like how in touch with the the land they are and that sort of thing. Like that's sort of

Kristy (14:04)
energy.

Jon (14:05)
the energy and the spirits of it, I think is how I would sort of describe

Kristy (14:07)
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah.

Jon (14:09)
that. So

anyway, that's me. I was blindsided.

Kristy (14:12)
Yeah.

I think the one thing that...

I don't want to say blindsided me, but.

maybe missed my expectations is I really thought this was going to be like a thriller thriller. And there's this like big hidden secret. And while there's, there are some things that happen that you are trying to figure out as a reader, what is going on? There's obviously secrets, both parties or like all, actually everyone who we really hear from.

has like a secret or something like they're not being completely truthful with and you're trying to figure that out. I never felt like when I think of a thriller, I think of like, I'm anxious. My heart is like a little bit racy. I'm trying to flip pages. I can't read fast enough. I have to figure out what's going on. Like that's what I want in a thriller. This didn't meet that bar for me. There was this.

It was mysterious. was like a spooky setting. It was what is going on. These people are maybe unreliable narrators, but I never felt the thrill that I'm looking for to the point where I actually went and changed our season lineup to include an actual true thriller because this book didn't meet that threshold for me. So.

That would be the one thing I would say was maybe a miss for me. I was expecting from this book and didn't get it.

Jon (15:47)
Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. I I I'm sure if I would have known going in that it was listed as a thriller, I probably would have felt similar, but so

Kristy (15:57)
Dominic moves his family to one of the most remote places on earth because he needed distance from something. Did you find him sympathetic right away or did that take time?

Jon (16:10)
I think I felt fairly sympathetic for him pretty early on. The that's probably in part of how she wrote the environment and what they were dealing with and how you know his family was really the last family on that island, everything he had to manage and take care of, the storm that came in right in the beginning, and now he's like, I gotta fix this, I gotta fix that.

And then you as you learn why he moved them there, and the ghosts that he's carrying with him, I think there is definitely more sympathy early on for him than than not. Though there were multiple points throughout the book where you just did kind of question like, are his motives true? Is he is he being completely honest, the reliable narrator thing you mentioned?

Kristy (16:57)
I mean,

most of the story he's not.

Jon (17:00)
Or at least he's withholding truth. He's not lying, but he's withholding evidence or withholding. So anyway

Kristy (17:10)
I I hear you,

but there are some pretty big gaps in what he's like. Like the passport

Jon (17:18)
Yeah.

Kristy (17:20)
that her husband did get on the ship, which he says multiple times and never happened. Like, yeah.

Jon (17:25)
that's true. That's true. That was not actually

accurate. Yeah. But yeah.

Kristy (17:30)
We learn

it's all in an effort to protect his children, which I totally understand. In hindsight, you're like, yep, makes absolute sense.

Jon (17:39)
Well, and protect

Rowan as their relationship develops about what happened with

Kristy (17:45)
no. I

think his motives through the entire % of the book are to protect his children.

Jon (17:52)
I don't I I d I agree with that. Yeah.

Kristy (17:53)
That's the right answer.

Jon (17:56)
Stop. Answer this question. Did you find him sympathetic

Kristy (18:00)
Ha ha.

Jon (18:01)
or did that take time for you?

Kristy (18:03)
I think it took a little bit of time for me because he seems like really gruff in the beginning. And I don't, I didn't feel like, I dis like this character, but I definitely felt the layers. I felt that there's a lot he's keeping close vest, which of course it's a story. You don't want everything to find out everything in the first, you know, 20 pages that wouldn't make for a very good story. But I don't think I felt

immediately like sympathetic. I'm like, here's this guy who's raising these three kids. He's in a remote part of the world. We learned that he moves because he needs to get as far away as possible. He says, we don't know why. We don't know what that means. And at that point, we really don't know what happened to his wife.

Yeah, I mean, he saves this person. I didn't think he was a bad person because if, or I shouldn't say bad person. I don't think he had intention to hurt Rowan. I never felt that although Rowan felt that at first she didn't understand his motives. like, you don't save someone the way they had to, if you're going to bring them harm. So I never, I never was concerned about that, but I did feel that there's more here.

I'm not sure what that more is and I need to suss this out a little more.

Jon (19:24)
Sus. Do you feel

like you the gruffness from him came from the narrator in the audio? I wonder if you would have felt the same way from reading it.

Kristy (19:32)
Maybe I will say I wish

I would have read the physical copy of this. I will.

Jon (19:37)
Mm. It was d it I

it would have been a different experience, I think, for sure.

Kristy (19:41)
I wonder if that would have given me the more like thriller nature of that. I will say I thought the accent of the narrator who did Dominic, who I don't want, these are two different things in my opinion. You can have a sexy voice that I like and not narrate an audio book well. I think those things can be true. I really liked his voice, but he spoke in a accent that I felt like made it difficult.

to understand him at times where I felt like we needed to slow the audio book down to hear it and hear and understand and appreciate the words where we didn't with, because it has multiple viewpoints and there are different

Jon (20:22)
Yeah.

Kristy (20:23)
narrators for those who haven't listened to it. So.

To answer your question, maybe. Maybe.

Jon (20:30)
Yeah.

I think I yeah, for

Kristy (20:32)
But that's what, mean, that is part of the experience, I guess.

Jon (20:35)
sure. I think I would have r read him a little bit differently in my head, than how that actor portrayed it, but that's that's kind of the trade off that you you do sometimes with audiobooks versus reading it yourself. Those decisions are sort

Kristy (20:47)
Yep. I mean,

Jon (20:49)
of made for you.

Kristy (20:50)
we thought the nine-year-old's name was Ollie until like halfway

Jon (20:54)
You're right.

Kristy (20:55)
through the book when we looked at the summary and his name's Orly with

Jon (20:58)
Summary. Orally. Yeah.

Kristy (20:59)
O-R-L-Y. We thought it was Ollie.

Jon (21:02)
Yes, yes, that's true.

Kristy (21:06)
So speaking of, Orly is nine years old and has grown up almost entirely on the island. He becomes attached to Rowan almost immediately. Was that believable to you or did it make the book or story more difficult to get through?

Jon (21:21)
it's a hundred percent believable. you by this point you're ready

Get a sense. I the book opens with Dominic talking about how his youngest is quote unquote his favorite or, you know, whatever he says, I don't remember, but there's something special and unique about Orly from the very beginning. as you learn that it's just Dominic is a single father with these three kids, it would it's immediately believable that a woman washes ashore and a nine-year-old boy who hasn't had a motherly figure would gravitate towards someone and ever

Kristy (21:52)
ever. Yeah.

Jon (21:54)
would gravitate towards.

someone and and and want that. So that plays you know a very critical emotional roller coaster through the whole book that relationship all the way to the end. So I would say I mean you could that it made it harder to read but only in this only from the point of view that yeah

Kristy (22:13)
You're expecting tragedy. That's

Jon (22:16)
Yeah. but yeah,

Kristy (22:18)
fair.

Jon (22:18)
it was totally believable that that happened. Do you feel the same?

Kristy (22:23)
Yeah. I mean, right away, like you said, Dominic is like, this boy is very special. He's very intelligent for his age. He's very intuitive for his age. And I feel like at nine years old, he's never had a woman around who is, you know, a mother figure to him. And Rowan is kind of bristly to him in a way that he, I think identifies with because different.

I think as a nine-year-old and not that he's around other nine-year-olds. So I think he's around mostly adults. So I think that has

Jon (22:57)
More adults, yeah.

Kristy (22:59)
affected how he has grown up. But I thought it was completely believable that at this like critical point, probably in a child's life where he's looking for something that this person is there and that he just gravitated toward it and became really attached to her.

Jon (23:14)
Yes he does.

Kristy (23:17)
All right, so Rowan washes ashore and she won't explain herself. As a reader, how did you respond to that mystery? Did you find her guarded or frustrating or a little bit of both?

Jon (23:29)
Both.

Next question, please. Move on.

Kristy (23:31)
Say more. I will not elaborate. Move on. Asked and answered.

Jon (23:39)
I think it's completely reasonable to feel guarded. You are on her journey like to reach this island to find what happened to her husband. And

her boat crashes. She probably thinks she's disoriented from that and even just being alive for one thing. And then realizing like you're in a completely stranger's home. There's no other humans around. Like that I think would make anyone guarded. no matter how they're taking care of you and like have healed you and things like that. I think there's there's gonna be a natural guard up for can't think of another

Kristy (24:15)
Sure.

Jon (24:15)
word.

I don't know that maybe frustrating isn't the right word, though towards the end it did feel a little

I guess without going too deep into it, when she discovers her husband didn't get on that ship, the flip-flopping that she kind of does between

realizing he's still alive, wanting to get him out of there, and then like realizing or accepting the kind of person that he has become or that they say he has become and why he's down in that hole. I it just felt like it was too easy of a switch that she was flipping. So I

that's probably how I would elaborate on that Answer. how did you find Rowan's mystery?

Kristy (25:06)
I mean, I definitely found her guarded, but like you're saying for probably the right reasons. I definitely think that she could have been like, okay, these people necessarily don't want to bring me harm. It doesn't mean I immediately trust them. I get that.

So I think that those two things can be separate.

I found, I did find her maybe a little frustrating because while you can be guarded, these people are trying to take care of you. I mean, he gave you stitches, like you have been asleep for a week. You know what I mean? They haven't chained you to your bed. They haven't limited you to a room. You know, he's been like,

Jon (25:44)
Your movement, yeah.

Kristy (25:46)
yeah, be safe. I need to know where you are.

which seems reasonable given you are on a remote island in the middle of like the Arctic Ocean. You have no business being here. These people are evacuated. You know I mean? There was a lot of reasons, yeah, reasons that seemed reasonable to me that I was trying to come up with another word that

Jon (26:06)
Yeah.

Kristy (26:07)
he would ask that of her, but he never like said, don't leave your bedroom or like don't leave the house or locked her in. So I felt her secrecy a little frustrating because I felt like

she could have been a little more honest in the beginning, which I don't know that it would change the storyline, but maybe could have given them better understanding of each other sooner. But wouldn't say I was like frustrated, led to the, mysterious feeling of the book and the need to like pull back layers and learn more and more.

Jon (26:38)
Yeah, and just like her being more open earlier on, I think is a good point. Yeah, but I mean I guess y it's easy to say that but then it's like I don't know who these people are they could have done something to her husband and then

Kristy (26:53)
Yeah.

Jon (26:54)
if she's like, I'm here to see my husband, what are they gonna do with me? But

Kristy (26:57)
mean, but

to be fair, she doesn't say that. She literally has no reason to be there. There should be

Jon (27:00)
No, she doesn't, yeah. Right.

Kristy (27:03)
no one there. The fact that she made it. Yeah,

Jon (27:06)
She was trying to get there at all.

Kristy (27:08)
she was trying to get there at all. Like I can imagine he's like, what the fuck is this person doing here? Do they mean to bring us harm? And obviously she doesn't have weapons or anything, but doesn't mean she didn't travel with them and like lost them when the boat crashed or cause there was a storm.

Like he doesn't know either. So I definitely think that Dominic has every right to be very guarded, but she shows up and she has no explanation. He knows who she is or he ends up figuring out who she is, but she doesn't say that. She doesn't say I'm here

Jon (27:38)
Yeah.

Kristy (27:39)
for my husband. She says nothing.

Jon (27:40)
Is that a miscommunication trope?

Kristy (27:43)
I mean, it's just miscommunication. It's just like lying, I guess, or not being honest.

Jon (27:49)
Okay.

Kristy (27:50)
The amount of things that like just a good honest conversation with Solve is staggering. We wouldn't have all these

Jon (27:54)
Staggering, I know, for real.

Kristy (27:57)
books.

The seed bank is central to the book, the idea of preserving something against total loss. Did that land as a metaphor for you or did it feel heavy handed?

Jon (28:09)
I don't do well.

Kristy (28:10)
Also, are you familiar with seed

banks? Were you before this book? Yeah.

Jon (28:16)
I mean I get the concept from this book, but no, I hadn't really heard of that before. I also don't do great with metaphors in books, which if anyone listened to our book our podcast on the Great Gatsby knows this.

Kristy (28:29)
What does the green light mean?

Jon (28:32)
it's a green light so they don't run into the shore. Doesn't mean anything.

Kristy (28:36)
It's a light that's green.

Jon (28:38)
so no, I don't think

any deep metaphor landed for me. I I understood the general concept of like there's something going on in the world that they don't really fully explain or describe, which I'm fine. I was fine with. I didn't really need to get into that. It was intentional.

Kristy (28:54)
I think is intentional. Yeah.

Jon (28:57)
and, actually

I'm gonna slightly take back something I said. maybe this is a metaphor, maybe it's not, but I did think that it really stood so there's so much loss and so much death and tragedy through all these characters' life that the seed bag did feel like a character of l life or rejuvenation or

hope or, you know, something to that effect or it's like these are things that can create life when there's so much death and tragedy that has happened to these characters and around this island and that sort of thing. So I don't know if that's a metaphor, but that's something that did pop in my head while we were listening.

Kristy (29:38)
That's a really good observation. I didn't even think about that.

I don't know if it was intentional, but it maybe seems like it. Yes. No one's keeping score. I think it's technically an analogy,

Jon (29:44)
One for Jon. Sc metaphor scores. Jon one. Kristy six million.

Kristy (29:51)
but yes.

Well, a metaphor

is like an analogy. But anyway, you're an analogy.

Jon (29:58)
An analogy is an analogy. A metaphor is a metaphor. I'm

an amal amalgemy. anyway, keep going. What did you think of the

Kristy (30:06)
No,

I think that's a really great point. I think it's probably intentional on the author's part, like the setting of that and what it represents. Charlotte McConaghy is also known for writing about climate, about these complicated things that are affecting our world now that there are not easy answers to.

So you calling out the ambiguity of the not knowing if there is something happening, you know, I'll say on the mainland that is affecting climate, that is the reason the seed bank is necessary. Not necessary because we have seed banks, but necessary that they're removing the seeds from this spot because it is going to be underwater and it is at real risk and they need.

need these seeds and they're also going to have to make hard choices about which ones they take. I think that's intentional or that is intentional that she leaves it to the reader to kind of think about and she doesn't say like this thing happened that caused this. I don't think that's necessary to the story. I think it's the shrouded in this mystery and that adds to the layers and depth of the story. But I think you are totally right that it's this like

idea of preserving, like it's preserving something, but also this like life versus death and what we see in the story and who gets to leave the island and who doesn't get to leave the island.

Jon (31:36)
Go me. Speaking of climate, I think.

Kristy (31:37)
Woohoo! Yeah, speaking

of climate, The climate backdrop is baked into the world of this book without being preachy. did you feel that or did the ecological grief feel like too much layered on top of the family drama?

Jon (31:52)
No, I thought it was completely a necessary character to understand and appreciate what these characters were going through. and it also brought like an understanding from between Rowan and Dominic, where you know Rowan lost her home and everything in in a in a wildfire.

And now Dominic is really kind of going through the same thing with the flood, or you know, rising tides and the the rising tide into the ocean. So I think there is some common ground and understanding that they bonded over there. yeah, so I I think the climate backdrop was completely critical to to the story.

Kristy (32:30)
Yeah, I think like I, as I mentioned in the last question that it just adds to the layering complexity and it does it in a way that you understand the gravity of what's going on, but there's no easy way to solve it. And there, you don't leave with any answers, which

you don't at all in this book. And we'll get to that, but I really felt, I think the loss of, not the actual like physical loss of human life there, but the world as we know it and we know how climate change is affecting that. And you you see it firsthand in the story.

Jon (33:11)
Yeah.

Right.

Kristy (33:13)
So Charlotte McConaghy writes very atmospheric, almost brutal settings. How did the island itself function for you? Did it feel like a character or more of a backdrop?

Jon (33:25)
Yeah, I think it was absolutely an essential character to the story. I don't think th this book would have hit the same way without the dynamics of that environment and the island and its

resources and different landscapes. They they talked about, you know, obviously the really rough seas and the steep mountains or not mountains but like hillsides and things like that. But

Kristy (33:49)
I was like, there were mountains?

Jon (33:52)
and the rough terrain. But then they also talked about like this beautiful water like bliss spot that was further inland

of the island where they went once, not just not around like the shores. And so it it just painted a r

Kristy (34:05)
where the albatross were.

Jon (34:07)
yeah, yeah. It just painted a really beautiful and complex picture. So you know, add to that the theme of you know, spirits on the wind or voices on the wind or or whatever that she sort of subtly wove through the book also

gave the island and the atmosphere like a sense of of life and of like personality traits

as well.

Kristy (34:31)
Yeah. I think those are good points. think that like you're saying it's a character and like people, we have a lot of layers and the island did as well. it had this very beautiful, serene life bringing part to it. So you have the Albatross family who have...

eggs and they get to see them hatch. So like you actually see life being developed and grown and here, right?

Jon (34:58)
Yeah. Same with the seals, yeah.

Kristy (35:00)
And then this like on the other hand, you have the death and destruction and decay and the darker side of like either people or you know, human life. So I felt that it did, there were so many layers to it. There's, you know, so much to it. And it definitely added to the complexity of the book.

And then also the mystery itself and everything we're learning in about the island, about these characters, about what's going on, why they're all there.

Jon (35:30)
Yeah. It's almost like the island helped reveal the secrets of each of the characters or played a part in the revealing of each

Kristy (35:36)
Hmm. Yeah.

Jon (35:37)
of the secrets of the characters.

Kristy (35:41)
I think for Rowan, how she interacts with each of the characters actually has to do with, if you think about it, the island itself and what happens when she goes out with Raph and they almost die because they get sat on basically by a whale.

And then, you know, when she's with Orly and like they see the albatross and then when she's learning about the penguins and this is it penguins and seal both with rat or sorry with Fen. Yeah.

Jon (36:06)
See but it's both. Yeah, with Finn. Yeah,

Yeah.

Kristy (36:10)
The relationship between Dominic and Rowan developed slowly. Did you buy it? Did you want more from it? Or did the pacing feel just right like Goldilocks? Yes. No, like Baby Bear.

Jon (36:22)
Like porridge.

I don't know how

to formulate these thoughts. So I don't I didn't

Kristy (36:28)
vomit on me.

Jon (36:31)
want more of it. I it almost felt to you at least initially, some of my initial reactions were like they're only there

A handful of weeks. Six weeks. I realize it's a long time. And I realize like the isolation probably has a can plays a po a part of this too. But it felt a little more

wanna say desperation, but like

Kristy (36:54)
convenience?

Jon (36:55)
maybe. I don't know if that's the right word either. I mean they were obviously s as they began to reveal more about each other, they mutual under understanding.

Kristy (37:02)
Do you feel like

these people are kind of like the last two people on earth? Of course, they're gonna fall in love and have sex.

Jon (37:11)
A little bit, like I got a little bit of that. but

Kristy (37:14)
my goodness.

Jon (37:16)
but I I say just a little bit of that. It wasn't like the whole point of my

Kristy (37:18)
You're supposed to love love, Jon.

Jon (37:20)
I do love, I do love, love. yeah, so I said that's what I'm saying. Like it was just sort of my initial reaction, but as it continued to unfold and

You understand that it's not superficial, that there is like a genuine closeness there and

connection, that's what I'm looking for. between the two of them, between what they've both what they've gone through and what they're going through. I think the pacing was was right. And it it needed to happen for the ending to hit as hard as it did, I think.

Kristy (37:54)
don't leave the book feeling the way you feel without it. One. Two, I think that...

When people go through trauma together, a lot of time that forms this connection that is in some ways unbreakable. And I mean, I'm sure it can be superficial in others because like you have this one moment and shared experience and that can sometimes be the only thing you have. But

Jon (38:22)
Yeah.

Kristy (38:23)
in the case of both Roman and Dom, like I feel like

they came at each other actually with skepticism and then as they pulled back each other's layers, they realized like they have not shared trauma but had to go through trauma to get to this point and they fill a void that the other one needs. So if they would have both left the island, do they live happily ever after and like raise his kids?

Who knows? We're never gonna know that. But did we get, or did they both get what they needed in the moment they needed? And did it feel like genuine and real to me? Absolutely.

Jon (39:10)
Fair points. Fair points.

Kristy (39:13)
I shall accept these points.

Jon (39:14)
Yes.

Kristy (39:17)
All right, so let's lean into that more though. The ending is not a happy one. Did it feel earned or did you close the book wanting something different?

Jon (39:31)
I I didn't want the ending to be what it was, even though I had strong suspicions that it wasn't going to end happily it was

Kristy (39:40)
I remember I said to you,

I was like, there's way too much of this book left for something not bad to happen.

Jon (39:48)
Yeah. Yeah, you did. and it was tragic and and awful. you think about Orly and like losing, you know, two mother figures essentially in his short life.

But then you think about what Rowan found within herself in that moment too and choices that she that she made and

as you l we learned about her backstory and never really wanting children or re you know, refusing to have children with her husband, and then to like come to this island and and find this strength, find this relationship, be able to forgive herself for losing her brother, which she took responsibility for when she was younger. And so there was a really a lot of

Kristy (40:32)
And her mom kind of

blames her for it.

Jon (40:34)
And her mom blamed her for, you know,

all that as well. And so there's there was really a lot in that moment that

unpacked itself. and yeah, it was

the words that I already used. tragic and I've said well yeah what I said

Kristy (40:48)
I've said what I've

Jon (40:51)
my my v emotional vocabulary is fairly limited. So You go.

Kristy (40:57)
I think the author is deliberate about not wanting to comfort the reader at the end. And I think that is intentional given the severity of the message around climate and what we do about that. I think that's intentional on the author's part. And it feels heartbreaking and tragic because to me, and these are my opinions,

If we don't address some of those things, it is going to be heartbreaking and tragic, full stop.

Jon (41:25)
Sure.

Kristy (41:26)
I said to you right after we started finishing it that I would have wanted an epilogue, not because I needed to be a happy ending, but it felt abrupt. The ending felt abrupt to me. And it felt very obvious that Rowan was going to die.

It also felt anti-climactic that she died. And that is what I'm grappling with. Now, I've had a couple weeks or a week since we finished this, and I don't know that I still feel that way, because I've sat with a little bit more. I thought about it a little bit more. I think that's probably intentional on the author's part.

I go back to a book.

that we read in season one that is still one of my favorites is If We Were Villains. That book does not offer comfort at the end. I have an opinion of, or have an idea of like what the intention was. I think it's completely open to interpretation. It doesn't end with a bow on it.

by any means, like you just don't know what happens. And so this felt similarly to me, like, okay, they made it to the boat, Rowan's dead, her husband dies, but Dominic and his three kids make it to the boat. Do they make it to the shore? Like, do they make it to back? What's waiting for them back there? Like, do they make it to Rowan's land? Like all those things. I don't know that...

I need an epilogue now, but I still have those. something you said to me was, well, if we got that, there'd have just been so much to tie up. It might've seemed unrealistic. And I think that's a fair point, but I don't need it to be like, they made it to the land and they're living their best. Like, I think it could've been literally like two paragraphs. Like it took us X amount of time like to get here.

and we're still sorting it out and there's a lot of questions that are uncertain but what Rowan gave to me and her sacrifice I don't know like I felt maybe that made me feel better but I also am acknowledging I don't need to feel better so I have no point just these are my thoughts.

Jon (43:36)
Yeah. Yeah.

That's good. I mean that is the point of this podcast, is to just share thoughts on on these books. yeah, I I I was okay with the ending. I I don't mind

in this case, I mean there obviously there are some stories where you're like, seriously that's it. Like you just ended there. Like that's feels like a cop out. This was not a cop out. This was like an intentional mood setter

For us to sit there and and yeah, like you said, like sit with it for a week and ruminate on it and how do you like they're very complex things that that are happening and have happened. So instead of her tying up what she thinks, like we're kind of left to inject our own experiences or our own interpretations of of what that is. And I I like that in

Kristy (44:25)
Yeah.

Jon (44:25)
in books.

Kristy (44:27)
Yep.

All right, any final thoughts, anything we didn't discuss that you wanna mention? And then would you recommend this book to our listeners? And specifically, what type of reader would you hand this book to if you would recommend it? Which I'm guessing you would.

Jon (44:47)
as for final thoughts, I I think only one other thought that I had that we didn't really cover was in the first part of the book, they do a lot of atmospheric setup, right? Like describing the island, the the challenges of of moving from place to place, from the lighthouse to the boathouse to where the seed bank is, etc.

Kristy (45:06)
The vault, yeah.

Jon (45:07)
Like one of the first

Points, I think Dominic was like, I'm taking an overnight bag. I'm gonna stay in this house because it takes me so long to get there. I feel like we lost a little bit of that later on in the second half of the book. It felt like they were just traveling

faster and quicker and easier. And maybe that it's probably just my interpretation because you don't obviously need to spend in a book. You don't have to describe every single journey.

But I that was like one takeaway. It was like, it seems so easy now for them to get to the seed bank when it was taking Dom like an overnight to get there. Anyway, that was one thought.

Kristy (45:39)
Yeah.

Jon (45:41)
would I recommend yeah, but I I think I would recommend it to people who maybe enjoy historical fiction type books or books that are maybe a little bit more of a

Kristy (45:52)
Why would you

say historical fiction? Just curious.

Jon (45:55)
I maybe just from like a pace or like a character development point of view.

Kristy (45:59)
Mm.

Jon (46:00)
and like you know, she writes this story based on a lot of factual elements about the environment and the and the world and things like that. So

That's kinda where my head went. But I think someone who enjoys those kinds of stories, I would not chalk this up as a thriller like

Kristy (46:16)
Yeah.

Jon (46:17)
we talked about. So if someone's like, I love I love thrillers, which I do,

Kristy (46:21)
Yeah, I'm looking for my next thriller read like

Jon (46:23)
yeah, this I wouldn't this wouldn't be one that I would I would say. So those are my thoughts.

Kristy (46:27)
Yeah, I think someone

who is really invested in a character-driven story, who's really invested in and appreciates great atmospheric writing, I think would be a good candidate for this. Like you said, someone who's like, I only read like murder mysteries or thrillers. Like this, it really isn't that.

Jon (46:47)
Yeah, agree. And yeah, I wouldn't even bring up climate or like any of those other themes of the book. I would let the whoever I'm recommending it to just sort of discover that on their own 'cause I wouldn't want that to be a turn off for someone. Like, I don't need to read a book about climate change or something like that,

Kristy (47:04)
Yeah.

Jon (47:04)
you know, like it's just a component of the book.

Kristy (47:08)
I think that it's a component of the book that asks the reader to think about this in a way that isn't in your face.

Jon (47:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy (47:18)
she is pointing out some real problems that we need to be dealing with now. We should have been dealing with 50 years ago and for a lot of reasons are not being addressed by some nations.

I think it's something people have to think about, but it's not in a way that's like preachy or climate change is a problem. You need to stop, you know, driving your vehicles and breathing.

Jon (47:43)
Yeah. And I think that was a

a great decision by the author to not describe what was happening in the rest of the world that led them to this place or the challenge that the like mainland was having. 'cause I I think even just a little hint of that it could have come across as as preachy like you said or something. So

Kristy (48:02)
Well, I appreciate you having final thoughts.

Jon (48:05)
I know, look at me go. Final thoughts and a metaphor in this episode. What a banger. Yeah.

Kristy (48:09)
Five seasons later. What a banger.

Well, don't forget that a free way to support our show is by leaving us a review and rating us on Apple podcasts. And if you have a question or feedback, you can email us at books that make my husband read at gmail.com. We would absolutely love to hear from you.

Jon (48:30)
Yep, we would. And if you don't want to email us, just go ahead and preach our show to other people. Actually, don't preach. I don't like that word. Tell some other book lovers about the show. Maybe there's a book that we've covered that they've read and they'll love to hear our thoughts and then we can hear their thoughts. it'll be a big community.

Kristy (48:46)
Yes.

Jon (48:46)
Be great.

Kristy (48:47)
Well, I guess that's it.

Jon (48:50)
That's another one in the books, boo.

Kristy (48:53)
Well, who knows? Maybe this will be the one your husband reads.

Jon (48:57)
Probably not. This is too complex.

Kristy (49:00)
My husband read it.

Jon (49:02)
He was forced to read it.

Kristy (49:03)
Well, maybe there

are other wives out there that will be as heavy handed as I am.

Jon (49:08)
Yeah, maybe, maybe. Okay then, TTFN

Kristy (49:11)
See ya.

‍