Use the following questions to jumpstart your discussion about Wild Dark Shore:

1. Hauntings and Grief: Multiple characters are haunted by past losses—Dominic by his wife Claire, Orly by the voices of animals killed on Shearwater, and Rowan by her brother River. How do these hauntings manifest differently for each character? Do you consider this novel a type of ghost story?

2. As the seed bank is closing, the Salts are supposed to save seeds that could help protect humans in the future, including important crops. But Orly decides to save instead the seeds that he finds the most beautiful and unusual. Do you think one approach is “right”? Discuss.

3. Rowan reflects: “Loving a place is the same as having a child. They are both too much an act of hope, of defiance. And those are a fool’s weapons.” Why do you think she feels that way? Does her view change over the course of the novel? If so, how and why?