"Moroccan Dreams" by Davina Calbraith (Troubador Publishing, 2025)

Suzie, working in a London advertising agency, is told at a month's notice to work in Marrakesh for at least a month. She's not getting on well with her boyfriend anyway. Her friend/colleague Isabel is going too. 20-something Tony from the ad agency shows them around. On p.22, halfway down there's "Eric, their new line manager". At the bottom of p.23 there's "Eric, her new line manager". Isabel's working at HQ while Suzie's taking over a shop. The employees don't like working for a foreign female and leave. She gets help from the "Carpet Man", someone who sells carpets under her winow. He teaches her Moroccan business skills and provides a business plan. Isabel moves out. Suzie's mother and sister arrive unannounced (p.60). They call her about her boyfriend. A page or so later they seem to have gone!? I thought it was a fragment of an old draft left in by accident but on p.87 her sister says "Don't expect us to visit you there again". Suzie applies to be on a TV business series. Isabel tries to keep it secret that she's applying too.

The Carpet Man, Mr Abdullah, is a Berber. He gives her cultural lessons. He spends much of his time in the desert. One day he takes her into the Agafay desert by camel.

After 4 months she's called back to the UK for a meeting. Christine tells her that she thinks Suzie's boyfriend (who Suzie seems to have barely contacted, who moved out of their flat without telling her) is having an affair. She invites her boyfriend to Marrakesh - after 4 months away! While she's briefly in England, her deputy shuts the shop down. Andy, a photographer, saves the day. She returns to Marrakesh. Isabel and Suzie are both accepted for the TV series. Her first ad-campaign (thanks to the Carpet Man) is a big success. The shop is converted into a mini HQ.

The TV show includes a round at Isabel's worklace. Suzie is (unfairly) eliminated after a round in Agafay desert. Isabel is eliminated soon after. There are rumours that Suzie and the Carpet Man are a couple. "He had a hypnotic wisdom when he spoke which engendered a kind of reverent trust in those that listened". Eric calls her suddenly to HQ, accusing her of stealing ideas from Isabel, or leaking ideas to a rival. She's suspended from work. Other people are questioned. She and Tony do some investigating, checking alibis. Eric has a girlfriend at a rival agency. They meet her. Eric finds out and grills them. They keep their jobs. They tell Eric's boss. Christine visits for a weekend. Carpet man returns, having disappeared for months. Eric mails staff to say that the culprit had been found and that they need a new deputy CEO. Carpet man is on the interview panel. Christine phones to tell her that Suzie's boyfriend had been going out with Isabel, who had been popping back to the UK Eric's boss has a talk with her. She's honest. She learns that Eric wasn't the source of the leak, but he'd made misjudgements and wouldn't become deputy CEO. Suzie would. She'd been given a difficult task and the shop was now a success. Isabel has been embezzling, and had been rude to people. Eric's boss had made Suzie's meeting with the carpet man look accidental. The company used Morocco as a training ground.

At the start, Suzie is so often not told about things (personal and company) that she should have been told about that it's Kafkaesque. I didn't get much of a culture-shock feel, or a feel for Marrakesk (I've been there, and into the desert by camel). Some of the events (I've mentioned them above) seem to have no effect - strange.

"Crash and burn" by Alison Bruce

An isolated, abandoned bungalow outside Streatham (north of Cambridge) is burnt down. 2 bodies are found - one new, and one under the floorboards, decades old. Ronnie (Veronica) investigates. She lives with her brother Alex and nephew Noah, 10 (his mother died). Malakei is in the team - young and single, living with his protective aunt. Nathan Paignton (nerdy brother of naughty suspect Alfie, 15) is suspected to be the victim. When Mariel was 2, she and her mother were abducted. Her mother Jacky wasn't seen again. Mariel was left in Trumpington St, where she now works. Chris Good, the son of the bungalow owner (a builder), had disappeared on the same night 20 years before. Mariel thinks she recognises the bungalow in the news article so she contacts the police.

Investigations reveal that the newer body is indeed Nathan's and that he could have started the fire. Alfie befriends Noah while he's walking from school, pretending he's Noah's uncle Owen. Questioned, Alfie says he did it to see if Ronnie is to be trusted. He confesses to Ronnie that Nathan lit the fire to stop Alfie getting into more trobule in the bungalow. Noah does have an uncle Owen, who he's never met. Ronnie arranges a meeting. 2 other bodies are found under the bungalow - women who were kidnapped for a ransom when Jacky disappeared in 2008. Connections emerge between the dead women and Chris Good. Nathan's father Steve, who owns a garage, is interviewed because Jacky had her car mended there. After (it's his PoV now), he writes letters while taking lots of pills with alcohol. He phones Ronnie, who suspects something's wrong. They find him in time. While recovering in hospital he tells the police everything. He'd been in debt and had gone to Chris Good. He ended up abducting women for him, and collecting the ransom money. He spared Mariel and killed Good, putting the body under "an ugly 1998 Fiat Multipla" in his back yard. They go to Mariel. She'd recalled a man saying "Dooboe" and had always wondered what it meant. Malakei says it might have been "Do both". It sparks memories. She recalls her father at the bungalow telling Chris Good to "Do both" (i.e. kill his wife and daughter). She confronts him, secretly recording the conversation. He tells her he married too early and family life got in the way of business. The father's arrested. Alfie stops bunking off school.

I know many of the locations. I like her internal monologues, though the vocabulary register doesn't always sound appropriate. They're not central to the plot. Nor is the Owen incident. I presume it's there for the benefit of a future book in the series. It's well-enough handled all the same. The final twist is rather implausible. The writing's effective - the flashiest phrase is "her forehead flickering with a frown".

"Her many faces" by Nicci Cloke (Harvill Secker, 2025)

An uncorrected proof copy. The "About the Author" section is "[2pp To Come]". There are 2 main time-lines - one starting at the crime, the other tracing the years up to the crime. Each short chapter is headed by the PoV's name, referring to Katie as "you".

2023. Katie, a 22 year-old waitress at a private London club - March House - is accused of poisoning 4 members - the owner/businessman (Wrightman), a politician (Ainsworth), a Russian oil baron (Popov) and Lowe, a property magnate. Tarun is her barrister, now separated from Elliot (because of overwork?). Katie claims that the bottle of poisoned brandy was in the room before she started her shift. Max (wife Anya) is a journalist. He finds out that Katie used the Rabbit Hole site to indulge in conspiracies - one of them (spread by Mr E) being that the evil people meet at a place that sounds like March House.

She had 2 older brothers, Bobby (who was a national level gymnast as a child. He now owns a coffee bar) and Stephen (who went to Sandhurst and was killed on duty). John, her father, is a vet. Her mother, less indulgent, is a teacher. When Katie was school age she accused Bobby's coach Peter (married to Julie) of taking photos in the shower. The couple left the area. She didn't have many friends. Bobby failed exams, took soft drugs. Gabriel, at school with her, liked her nerve. They became friends. When Katie was 18, James and Katie returned. Their house caught fire. Katie's parents thought she set it alight. She left for the family farm, run by Uncle Neil. There she seduced a visiting inspector, Conrad, who's engaged. Katie keeps contacting him, then his fiancee. Around that time someone anonymously reported breaches of regulations at the farm. She left the farm and returned home. She moved to London in a squat. Besotted Gabriel joined her. Her parents divorced. Neil killed himself. Conrad was headhunted by Wrightman, who makes him a member of the club. Now single, he contacted Katie again. They sometimes dated at March House - 2 people who'd disappointed their mothers. She told Gabriel about Conrad. By now, Gabriel believed in Mr E's conspiracy theories. She'd doesn't. When Wrightman sees Katie, they flirt. Her offers her a job. She pesters Conrad. He tries to break it off. She leaves the squat to live with her brother Bobby. Wrightman doesn't after all offer Conrad a big job. Coonrad receives a gift of brandy, anonymously. He gives it to Wrightman. Gabriel returns home. We learn that he'd been with her when she set Peter's house alight.

The post-crime people start meeting the pre-crime ones. At court, John meets Clara Popov, who's sympathetic. The defense team are doing a good job of defending her. It looks as if she's used her connections to infiltrate March House. Wrightman's son, Hunter, lives in the club. Max accuses him of being Mr E. He admits it, saying that his sister was abused in the club and his father ignored it. Bobby tells his father that Neil had always been threatening and scary. Katie's mother is in the farm while the trial's on. She discovers that Neil had access to the poison and had bought a special bottle of brandy. The trial is abandoned. Katie is released. She goes to Stephen's grave (where she'd gone after the fateful night. She recovers a stash of money in a nearby shed, money she'd stolen from the club clients. She's planning a long holiday.

My interest grew as I read. The suspicion falls on several people - I didn't know who the culprit would be. That we learn about Katie through the eyes of others is interesting, though not all the characters develop plausibly. Neil, and the siblings' reaction to him, is especially problematic. I was surprised to learn that Gabriel had seen Katie's act of arson - it makes his subsequent behaviour surprisingly in retrospect. The court action is well handled.

Other reviews

• bookishelf (The novel’s greatest strength lies in its innovative structure. Cloke masterfully weaves together multiple timelines and perspectives, creating a rich tapestry of Katherine’s life before and after the murders. Each narrator brings their own biases, blind spots, and emotional investment in Katherine’s story, making readers question whose version of events they can trust. The author’s decision to tell the story primarily through male perspectives is particularly effective, highlighting how women are often defined and judged through the male gaze. ... While the novel is overwhelmingly successful, there are a few areas where it could be stronger: Some plot threads, particularly those involving minor characters, feel slightly underdeveloped; The conspiracy theory elements occasionally threaten to overwhelm the more nuanced character study; A few transitions between perspectives can be jarring)
• readwatchdrinkcoffee (It was so fascinating to see how someone can be seen so differently by different people. This is what hooked me the most, as I love the way Cloke explores Katie through the years and how her experiences shape her character. I did find the ending slightly underwhelming, but at the same time, it was very plausible and genuine, so I think I may just need some more time to dwell on it to be able to appreciate it more.)

"The extinction of Irena Rey" by Jennifer Croft

An audio book.

It begins with a translator's note, telling us that the translator is a character in the piece which was written in Polish, the narrator living in South America, translating into Spanish.

Irena, having written 2 unsuccessful novels, married and had a book successfully filmed. With the money she bought a house by a Polish forest. Bogdan is her husband. Her team of 8 translators are invited there for her latest book, "Grey Eminence". They're nameless, labelled by their language. The Czech translator has died. There's a new, male, sexy Swedish translator. The others are female. They speak only in Polish, their only common tongue. There's an interest in fungi - a rare slime-mould - and extinction. The forest is dying. There are non-native species.

Irena disappears, first e-mailing them each a copy of the book. Bogdan has disappeared too. They each read part of the book (over 900 pages), summarising it to the others. The book's protagonist, Amalia is the first climate-change artist. Is Amalia Irena's alter-ego? She's a literary top-predator without enemies? They break into her bedroom. It has many contemporary Japanese books. The translators look in the surrounding wood for her - it has wild boar and bad symbols. Old trees could fall. A quarter of the world's languages are in the great forests.

The Swede, Freddie, breaks a taboo by asking for the narrator's name. She's Emilia. Her mother was a therapist and her father owned a condom company. He says he's a budding poet. His wife is Bogdana, who left Poland when a gallery she was guarding was burgled.

They all start breaking taboos - they use their names and question Irena's writing. Chloe's nearly hit with an arrow - are they under attack? They gather to discuss evidence. Irena seemed out of sorts before she disappeared - perhaps what they saw was Lashie, the fabled guardian of the forest - a shape-shifter. Emilia thinks that a forest-ranger they met could be Lashie. Irena has a basement stocked with alcohol where she grows fungi. Perhaps she was poisoned by the final meal they shared?

Pavel, the Czech translator, isn't dead. He meets the narrator. He and Irena were lovers for years, breaking up when he got her pregnant. She miscarried. Irena's father didn't die in a duel. He lives next door, 100 years old. He thinks Irena might have gone to Japan. Freddie and Emelia have sex for a few nights. The English translator Alexis receives an e-mail from Irena, asking for the latest translation. She sends it, not realising that the e-mail's a fake. The Nobel's announced. She doesn't get it (but will 9 years later). Barbara (a Polish author who Irena hates) turns up to say that she and Irena are off to Belarus to collaborate. A parrot comes to live with them. It eats an all but extinct native beatle.

The team hurry to complete the translation - Amalia dies, the forests are in danger They weren't allowed to translate other authors, but now they admit that they secretly do. The narrator (who hates Alexis) thinks Alexis and Freddie are becoming close friends. Alexis starts wearing Irena's clothes. Emlia reads Alexis' translation and sees that a section's missing. They realise that Irena's been using parts of their lives as material for her novel, and that Irena had stolen ancient artefacts in the house. Was Bogdan trying to return them to museums? Alexis and Emilia have a duel. Both miss. Emilia looks at files on Irena's computer. There's a draft about Translators - minotaurs who feast on flesh. There's a section on each of them - were they chosen because of their sad lives? Emilia's described as a submissive loser, providing the novel's comic relief.

Diggers are invading the forest. Emilia gets an article published and protesters appear. The translators have been there for over 6 weeks. Emilia, using social media, thinks she knows where to find Irena. They hire a van and head for an abandoned Berlin airport. They find some of Irena's and their possessions in the lost-and-found office. Irena shoots an arrow at them from a rooftop. They kill her, take her body home and burn it, along with the house, blaming the Polish Government for it (they wanted to keep her quiet), vowing to keep her words alive. Bogdan had been e-mailing them, pretending to be Irena.

It scored only 3.2 on Goodreads. Having read some reviews after having completed the book, I realise I've missed a lot. I'm impressed. I was expecting the team to become a replacement for the missing writer, perhaps dying one by one until only 1 or 2 were left. For me there are too many red-herrings/loose-ends - the cellar, the duel, Bogdana, Amadou.

Other reviews

• tonysreadinglist (We’re supposedly reading the English-language translation of a novel first written in Polish, a fictionalised account of the translation summit penned by Emilia, Rey’s Spanish-language translator. To make things even more complicated, Alexis Archer, the American doing the translating, is also a character in the novel, and you get the feeling that this is no labour of love ... the translators attempt to work out what’s going on, the various rivalries and attractions are played out, with surprise visitors turning up to add to the tension. It’s all rather OTT at times, with the translators coming apart at the seams the longer they’re left to their own devices. And yet, they’re not just disintegrating, but also emerging as individuals, in a way they couldn’t when Their Author was present. ... The Extinction of Irena Rey is also a densely plotted story, with plenty of Tokarczuk Easter eggs for the devoted. For example, there’s a notable focus on fungi, and the idea of mycelia, the great underground systems of interconnected plant-life. This also plays a prominent role in Tokarczuk’s early novel Primeval and Other Times)
• Carrie O'Grady (the text we are reading, written by Spanish, has itself been translated by another of the eight, English – and Spanish and English do not get along. English makes it clear, in her prefatory Note from the Translator, that she has her suspicions about Spanish’s version of events, and has “corrected” a few things as she went along. So we are faced with a (possibly) unreliable narrator, translated by a (possibly) unreliable translator. It’s a hall of mirrors worthy of Nabokov ... Croft just about manages to keep it all together, although her fondness for themes and metaphors comes at the expense of character development. The warring English and Spanish are a marvellous double act, but others who could also have been interesting (Serbian and Slovenian, for instance) are neglected. And the ending, which unites the group once more, falls a little flat)
• Chris Rutledge (Croft is well suited to write a story about translators, and one is tempted to read much into her background. Best known for her campaign to have translators (deservedly) named on the covers of the books they help shape, she herself is a Booker Prize-winning translator of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Flights, among other works. Emilia is her avatar here ... One weakness is the somewhat fantastical nature of Irena’s disappearance. Her motivations and methods remain inscrutable, and the translators’ search for her has a bit of a knockabout feel to it.)
• Chris John Poole (The Extinction of Irena Rey provides no single stand-in for its author; instead, a network of interlinked characters echo Croft’s own life. ... Rey’s home underlines the disconnect between abstracted selves and the real people who create them. Similarly, the surrounding forest, Bialowieza, reveals the divide between nature’s fluidity and the artificial limits imposed on it. Its boundaries are rigidly drawn: a border splits Belarus from Poland; fences wall off private property; xenophobes view migrants as intruders. Yet the underlying ecosystem remains hybridising and amorphous ... To some extent, Emilia and Alexis embody two prevalent translation approaches, and the poles of the novel’s core dichotomy. Emilia, an endlessly faithful translator, wrestles with Alexis, who willingly transforms and rewrites.)
• Ilana Masid (If your head is spinning at the layers here — a novel within a novel that is actually a translation of a Polish novel based on real events written by a non-native Polish speaker — you're exactly where you should be, and you're in for a delightful adventure. ... Croft's novel is about a lot of things: the complexities and beauties of translation, climate change and the mass extinction of species, art's potential to save or destroy the world, obsession, lust, and much more. But perhaps more than anything else, it is about how impossible it is for anything living to be entirely, absolutely individual and independent.)
• Lyle Rhytis (Wrought in lively prose and complemented by a dazzling suite of meta-textual hijinks set to the beat of a mystery novel, The Extinction of Irena Rey is an empathetic and comic investigation of the role of the translator within the literary project. It is particularly delightful for those with a brain for literary puzzles, Easter eggs, and books within books. ... The book The Extinction of Irena Rey is most indebted to is Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire ... Without access to Emilia’s original, we are forced to draw our own conclusions from a rollicking interplay of an unreliable translation of an unreliable text. Admittedly, some readers might find their suspension of disbelief taxed a bit too much at times: the translators’ actions are initially a bit too servile and, by the book’s close teeter toward the unbelievable.)

"Mindset Mindrise" by Katie Griffiths (Nine arches press, 2026)

The 3 pages of notes/acknowledgements point out which poems are "after" others, which poems are mash-ups of legal documents, quotes, or articles, etc. A poem was in the 50th Pushcart Anthology.

I like the book's title and several of the pieces. The most interesting ones are "The Man/Boy in the Moon", "TechBro bites his nails", "When we had jobs", "He calls me tulip-mad", "Is he invention, sidekick, lodger", "RifleBrain", and "Before I stillbirthed the birch". Not so tempting are "I give TechBro scissors", "TechBro's My anecdote" or "TechBro wants me to copy his handstand".

There are sections I don't think I understand, or perhaps I'm looking for too much -

• "Downward gaze at latest phone./ Jungle gym of hyper-functionality,/ ultra-performance, riveting liturgies./ Silent call and response. Defection/ into Narnias-within-Narnias" p.36
• "Let's call my stance/ a bamboo guardrail/ over a gnarly future// let's call it the southbound lane/ still traffic-coned/ on the replacement bridge" p.69

"Verbal reasoning test" has gaps - e.g. "Perhaps language is to narrative/ as candles are to _________". Don't believe the "Answers on page 81" footnote.

"Zeno's conscience" by Italo Svevo (Penguin, 2022)

First published in 1923. The author was Ettore Schmitz - his father was a German Jew. Ettore was expected to join his father's glassware business but he liked literature. When his father's business failed, Ettore worked in a bank. He married into a successful family (with an underwater paint business), accepted by them as quirky and interesting. He took English lessons from James Joyce. They liked each other's work. Some of Bloom's Jewish details come from Svevo. Thanks to Joyce, Eliot and Montale found out about "La coscienza di Zeno". Svevo became famous in literary circles. He wrote in an Italian that people found clumsy - it was his third language.

In the Preface it says "I am the doctor occasionally mentioned in this story, in unflattering terms. Anyone familiar with psychoanalysis knows how to assess the patient's obvious hostility towards me ... I am publishing them in revenge, and I hope he is displeased. I want him to know, however, that I am prepared to share with him the lavish profits I expect to make from this publication, on condition that he resume his treatment"

It's set in Trieste. Zeno's first-person PoV. The sections are -

• "Smoke" - He kept having "his last cigarette". He went into a clinic, drank, then escaped - thinking that the doctor was having an affair with his wife.
• "My Father's Death" - His mother died with he was 15. His father, a widower, died in 1890. They had little in common. There was little love, though the death affected the narrator greatly
• "The Story of My Marriage" - He befriended a family with 4 daughters whose names start with "A". The father, a businessman, was unfaithful - the wife knew. The narrator decided at 30 that he should marry, and decided rather arbitrarily that he'd marry Ada, the person in the family who'd shown the least interest in him. He obsessed about her, decided that it's her or nobody. "It is said, indeed, that the dying, in their final fever, review their whole lives. My past now gripped me with the violence of a last farewell because I had the feeling I was moving far away from it". He met his rival, Guido, who's handsome and talented. He'd been talking to (ugly?) Augusta as a way to stay close to Ada, but rebuffed by Ada, he immediately asked Augusta to marry him. She'd liked him from the start.
• "Wife and Mistress" - He got used to married life, liking decisions being made for him. He found a mistress, Carla, a poor singer. "I had wept so over my infidelity before committing it, that it should conceivably have been easy to avoid it". At a family gathering he messed up the reporting of a friend's death. "Wine ... reveals especially the past and forgotten history of the individual rather than his present wish; it capriciously flings into the light also all the half-baked ideas with which in a more of less recent period one has toyed with and then forgotten". After a year or two, Carla's proposed to by her song teacher and breaks up with Zeno. Augusta and Zeno have a daughter, Antonia, who comes to look like Ada.
• "The Story of a Business Partnership" - Zeno goes into business with Guido, who has a rich South American father. They start with some bad deals. Guido employs Carmen - because Guido wants her as a mistress? Ada has twins. She has to go to a sanatorium. She returns, looking ugly. Zeno tries to find a job elsewhere for Carmen. Guido pretends to attempt suicide. He gets a promise of money from Ada to prop up the firm. Augusta has a 2nd child, Alfio. When the company's about to go bust, Guido gambles in stocks, does well, then loses it all. He expects Zeno and Ada to help bail him out. He overdoses again - another fake attempt. This time, partly because it was raining, doctors arrive too late. Zeno misses the funeral because he was trying to recoup the money. Ada and her children go to live with her in-laws in South America.
• "Psychoanalysis" - It's 1915. War. He's stopped therapy. The therapist said it was Oedipal complex and that he was cured. However the narrator had invented the things he'd told the therapist with emotion. He wants the manuscript of "confessions" back from the therapist. He's now going to set the story straight. On p.405 we learn he had a brother, a year younger than he (or was it just a dream?). The narrator recounts dream about his early years. The narrator said that Zeno's smoking was to do with his father. He has a break in the countryside. He chats up a peasant girl. He meets German soldiers, complaining to them when they block his walk. He believes that business has cured him - since war broke out he has been buying.

There's a disconnect between emotion, intellect, and the body. Reasoning can generate fake emotion, and visa versa. Illness is a reminder of death; it can be psychosomatic (caused by emotion); it can be faked to attract sympathy (caused by intellect).

"Wild Dark Shore" by Charlotte McConaghy

An audio book

Several PoVs (and readers!)

Rowan is found on the shore of Shearwater Island. She's wounded, has hypothermia, and then recovers. The island (close to Antarctica, owned by Tasmania) has an internationally important seed store. The research station has been abandoned. One family is left, living in the lighthouse. There's Dominic, the widowered father who still talks to his wife, with children Raff, Fen (girl, 17) and Orly, about 9. They've been there 8 years. Clare's been dead for 9 years. In 6 weeks, they and the seed store will be collected - the rising sea-level will make the island disappear before long. They're short of power and fresh water. The radio's been broken.

A decade or so before Rowan had bought land and built a house. Hank came into her life. He wanted children, she didn't. Their house burnt down. They'd searched through the ruins. She's gone to live with her sister. He went away for a year to become team leader on the Island. He didn't return to her. She thinks that Dom may have killed him. Dom recognises her. She tries to get the children on her side. They find out who she is. Raff had been in love with Alex, a fellow violinist from the research camp. Fen's not allowed to sleep in the house (because Dom doesn't trust himself?). She loves the sea. Orly knows a lot about botany - his interesting facts punctuate the book.

Rowan has come to the island because she'd got a worrying message from Hank (47). Dom confirms that he was troubled, that they'd tried to help him. Dom digs up a grave - it's Alex's not Hank's. Alex died in a storm-induced accident - did he hang himself? His brother Tom, 8 years older, had been on the island too. Rowan's younger brother River had drowned while she was supposed to be looking after him. Dom and Rowan make love.

The family wonder where they'll go from here. A whale capsizes Raff and Rowan. They recover. Fen burns her father's horde of Claire's stuff, for his sake. The seed store is broken into by the sea. They have to decide which seeds to save. Hank had been the expert. He'd trained Orly. A mother and child whale become beached. Dom must decide whether to save the whales or the seeds. They try to do both. They free the child whale. The mother is more of a problem, but they free her too.

Rowan finds Hank locked in a room in the seed store. We go back in time, Fen's PoV. Fen and Hank had an affair. She'd told him she was pregnant. He'd tried to drown her. He'd tried to drown the seeds. Dom had battered Hank, Raff had dragged Dom away, then Dom imprisoned Hank.

We learn that Rowan had cancer when she was pregnant with Orly. She made a decision to have Orly rather than have an abortion and save herself. Dom could have over-ruled her.

It was Orly who had destroyed the radio equipment to make sure that Dom finished the seed-sorting work. Rowan, thinking Dom mad for imprisoning Hank, learns from Fen that Hank was dangerous. When the sea begins to flood Hank's cell she's unsure whether he should be saved. Orly decides to save him. When he releases Hank, he locks Orly in. Rowan saves him as he's drowning by giving him her last breath of air. Dom is freed of his demons - Claire's accusatory voice. Meanwhile, Hank tracks down Fen. Raff deals with him. So in the end the family leave the island but nobody else does.

In general, the smaller the island, the more symbolic the action. The story begins and ends with the same 4 people. Alex affects Raff. Rowan changes Dom. Hank affects Fen and Orly. There's a pile-up of action at the end. I hadn't expected Hank to appear, and I certainly hadn't expected young Orly to have been the saboteur. The symbolism of the whales (motherhood; choice of who to save) felt a little heavy-handed. I don't like "narrow in shape"

Other reviews

• Jen Shoop (Do we save the ones most likely to thrive and nourish? Do we protect the rarest of the lot, the ones most likely never to come back? Or do we permit our own imperfect hearts to make the call, favoring those whose features move us? ... Do we save the ones most likely to thrive and nourish? Do we protect the rarest of the lot, the ones most likely never to come back? Or do we permit our own imperfect hearts to make the call, favoring those whose features move us?)
• whatisquinnreading (The only (barely) negative thing I can say about Wild Dark Shore is that the literary thriller-mystery includes more moments of melodrama than I would’ve anticipated (that whale scene comes to mind — IYKYK).)
• David Burton (It is clear McConaghy is reaching for literary acclaim here. She will receive it and deserves it, but the prose comes close to indulgent in its constant lyricism. Even though the novel switches between diverse points of view, the narrative voice never alters. Even the youngest child is capable of a stream of beautifully articulated poetic thought, filled with thematic relevant allegory and desolate imagery.)