A Different Tide: Reading vs. Listening to Wild Dark Shore

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

This book and I had a bit of a rocky start. Earlier this year, I listened to it on audiobook and… it just didn’t land. I kept seeing rave reviews everywhere, though, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d missed something. So, I picked up the physical book and gave it another go - and what a completely different experience it turned out to be.

It’s made me think a lot about format. These days, if someone recommends a book to me, I’ll often ask: did you love it on paper or in your ears? Because sometimes that matters. If I adore a book in print and then someone listens to the audio version and tells me it fell flat, I don’t think we’ve actually had the same experience at all. Maybe I need to start including in my reviews whether I read or listened - it feels like a crucial part of the conversation.

Back to Wild Dark Shore. Actually reading the physical book, I understood what all the fuss was about.

Wild Dark Shore takes us to a remote island on the edge of the world, where a family is living with loss, isolation, and the weight of protecting something precious. Into this fragile existence comes a stranger, carrying secrets of her own, and from there the story unravels with storms, tension, and quiet moments of beauty. It’s part mystery, part survival tale, and completely steeped in atmosphere. It’s the kind of book where the landscape feels like another character, wild and untamed.

I loved the sense of anticipation threaded through every chapter. The characters are complex, and McConaghy doesn’t spell everything out (thank goodness - I hate when books underestimate the reader). Instead, you get these subtle hints, like shadows moving at the edge of your vision, leaving you unsure but compelled to keep turning the page.

And while I thought I’d caught on to where things were heading, I absolutely didn’t see all the twists coming. That balance of almost guessing, but not quite, is such a treat as a reader.

In short: if you’re picking this one up, I’d recommend the physical book over the audiobook. For me, it was the difference between feeling detached and feeling completely pulled under its wild, dark tide.. because life is too short to read bad books.