The Night Ship
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4.5 • 35 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
A SUNDAY TIMES BEST HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK
1628. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship’s busy world, and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. As tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.
1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a child struggling with a dark past and Gil’s actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.
The Night Ship is an enthralling tale of human brutality, providence and friendship, and of two children, hundreds of years apart, whose fates are inextricably bound together.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Rich with historical detail and full of intrigue, The Night Ship is grounded in the perspectives of two children separated by more than 300 years. Their stories are united by geography and tragic circumstance. Both have lost their mothers; both are forced to grow up young; both retain an innocence despite this, an innocence the reader hopes the world will allow them to keep a little longer. Mayken finds herself on the real-life ship the Batavia in 1628, on her way to live with a father she has never met, while Gil is sent to live with his terse grandfather in 1989, on the small island that was the site of the Batavia’s ultimate shipwreck. There, as gossip about him circulates, he is viewed as odd, or worse, suspicious. The parallels between their stories—told in alternating chapters and with increasing, absorbing urgency as the novel reaches its climax—are clear but never heavy handed. The effect, as the children face hostility and find warmth in unexpected places, is deeply moving.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kidd (Things in Jars) unfurls parallel narratives of two nine-year-old children in her intriguing latest, based on a historical shipwreck. In 1628, after the mother of a girl named Mayken dies, she sails from Holland to the Dutch East Indies with her nursemaid to join her merchant father. Mayken's precocious nature leads her to explore the ship, called the Batavia. While dressed as a boy in order to pass unnoticed, Mayken searches deep into the Batavia for a monster that crew members claim lives there. In 1989, a boy named Gil goes to live on Beacon Island in Australia after his mother's death. Gil now lives with his fisherman grandfather, Joss Hurley. This is where the Batavia sank, and an excavation of the wreck is now underway. Gil is intrigued by the project and by the rumor that a ghost still haunts the island. Meanwhile, a feud escalates between Joss and Roper, another fisherman, that started years ago when Roper's uncle drowned at sea. Kidd effortlessly navigates between the two time periods, highlighting the similarities between Mayken's and Gil's lives and the increasing dangers they face. Readers will be swept up in this fast-paced narrative.
