Based on a true story, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.

1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia , one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks.

1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck…

With her trademark “thrilling, mysterious, twisted, but more than anything, beautifully written” (Graham Norton, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling, Jess Kidd weaves “a true work of magic” (V.E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue ) about friendship, sacrifice, brutality, and forgiveness.

My Review

I’ve now listened to all four of Jess Kidd’s original novels (this time on Borrowbox), and while Things In Jars will probably always be my favourite, The Night Ship comes a close second. It’s written in two timelines – a young Dutch girl called Mayken in 1629 aboard the Batavia with her nursemaid, and Gil, 360 years later in 1989. Both have lost their mothers, one from the ‘flux’, the other from a drug overdose, but while Mayken is going to live with the father she doesn’t know, Gil has been sent to live with his grandfather on the same remote island off the coast of Western Australia where Mayken was shipwrecked.

It’s not typical of Kidd’s novels – there are no spirits of saints that only certain people can see, or nuns, or dead boxers, and it lacks the ‘Irishness’ of the other three books (though Dutch in 1989 is actually Irish – don’t ask). However, it has its own brand of magic, particularly Mayken’s story, which was my favourite of the two timelines, but only by a whisker. I know nothing of this period of history, especially as the characters are Dutch, so I know even less. There are plenty of superstitions and myths though to get your teeth into, if they don’t get their teeth into you first.

Gil is a strange boy, living in a world where men were men, and dressing up in his grandmother’s clothes was not advisable unless you wanted to get beaten up. He keeps a tortoise called Enkidu as a pet. I’m not saying that’s strange – I had a tortoise called Ermintrude when I was a child. But he has no friends and doesn’t go to school.

Mayken is travelling to the Dutch East Indies when they are shipwrecked. She resides on the upper decks with the better off travellers, but she likes to dress up as a boy and go below deck where the soldiers and the cows live. And of course the rats. There she meets a British soldier and a barber/surgeon who can take your leg off with a saw. She believes her nursemaid was bitten on the foot by an eel and that it has become infected.

It’s a wonderful book, switching from one timeline to another, and written with Kidd’s flair for language, and of course her vivid imagination. The only restriction is that the Batavia shipwreck is based on a true story, so while many of the characters have been embellished, the cruelty, murders and devastation have their roots in fact.

I forgot to mention the two brilliant narrators – Fleur De Wit for Mayken’s tale, and Adam Fitzgerald for Gil’s. They really made the story come to life.

Now on to Murder at Gulls Nest about an ex-nun turned Miss Marple. I bet it will be very different.

About the Author

Jess Kidd was brought up in London as part of a large family from county Mayo and has been praised for her unique fictional voice. Her debut, Himself, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in 2016. She won the Costa Short Story Award the same year. Her second novel, The Hoarder, published as Mr. Flood’s Last Resort in the U.S. and Canada was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2019. Both books were BBC Radio 2 Book Club Picks. Her latest book, the Victorian detective tale Things in Jars, has been released to critical acclaim. Jess’s work has been described as ‘Gabriel García Márquez meets The Pogues.’