Dominic Salt and his children Raff, Fen, and Orly are the last caretakers of Shearwater Island, a storm-cut rock near Antarctica that holds a global seed vault. Researchers have already left; the sea is coming for the buildings, the beaches, and the seeds. Then a woman named Rowan washes ashore, half-drowned, and the family's careful isolation starts to crack. McConaghy's 2025 novel is a climate-haunted mystery about grief, ferocious love, and the impossible work of choosing what to save.
“But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die.”
