Genre Fiction
![Jess Kidd - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_jess_kidd.jpg)
The Night Ship: A Novel
Based on a real-life event, 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 unputdownable and charming tale of friendship and sacrifice, brutality and forgiveness.
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 unputdownable and charming tale of friendship and sacrifice, brutality and forgiveness.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Jess Kidd
"Jess Kidd is so good it isn't fair." -ERIKA SWYLER, bestselling author of The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars
"A few pages in and I was determined to read every word Jess Kidd has ever written. " -DIANE SETTERFIELD, for Things in Jars
"Jess Kidd is an author who shows a poet's way with words and rhythm." -Electric Literature
Praise for The Night Ship
"Kidd's latest weaves a spell around the reader, transporting them across centuries, between a doomed ship and a dying island. The result is a true work of magic, and one that will haunt me for years." -V.E. SCHWAB, international bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
"Kidd shows a keen understanding of how thin the boundary between the magic and the mundane is for children and treats their understanding of the world with seriousness and compassion. Her prose has an arresting simplicity that evokes fairy tales, and the echoes between Mayken's and Gil's experiences are treats for the reader to discover. An ambitious, melancholy work of historical fiction that offers two wondrous young protagonists for the price of one." ― Kirkus Reviews
"Jess Kidd is so good it isn't fair." -ERIKA SWYLER, bestselling author of The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars
"A few pages in and I was determined to read every word Jess Kidd has ever written. " -DIANE SETTERFIELD, for Things in Jars
"Jess Kidd is an author who shows a poet's way with words and rhythm." -Electric Literature
Praise for The Night Ship
"Kidd's latest weaves a spell around the reader, transporting them across centuries, between a doomed ship and a dying island. The result is a true work of magic, and one that will haunt me for years." -V.E. SCHWAB, international bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
"Kidd shows a keen understanding of how thin the boundary between the magic and the mundane is for children and treats their understanding of the world with seriousness and compassion. Her prose has an arresting simplicity that evokes fairy tales, and the echoes between Mayken's and Gil's experiences are treats for the reader to discover. An ambitious, melancholy work of historical fiction that offers two wondrous young protagonists for the price of one." ― Kirkus Reviews
Readers Top Reviews
Sheoke
This is a wonderful book with great heart. It’s quite an unusual split novel with just the link between two children over 400 years - 1629 to 1989 on Beacon Island (Batavia’s Graveyard) in the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of WA. The Batavia tragedy has been covered extensively - some excellently (see Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash), some poorly (FitzSimons, de Grol) but this is the first semi-fictionalised version to truly “humanise” the people who suffered so horrifically at the hands of the monster Jeronimus Cornelisz and his band of murderous thugs. It showed that people suffered just as much then as they do today, epecially the little children. I was sorry when I had finished it. In my opinion, even at 380 odd pages, it was still much too short. One of the best books I have read in years. 5 stars!
mrs k corby
Jess Kidd has a magic with prose quite like any other author. Her words dance from the page transporting the reader into mot only different places but different worlds, you see it and taste it, smell it, every sense is is felt. Two stories hundreds of years apart but two kindred spirits never the less. Two lost souls looking for solis. Both stories full of fight full of wanting to be wanted, of people and their beliefs. The hardship of life and hope. I read fast but reread too as the prose had such an effect. Fast but not wanting to finish. I loved this book as with all Jess Kidds books. I know it will stay with me a while, I also know nothing else will quite compare. Take the journeys, dive in you won't be disappointed.
Brenda Telford
It was 1629 when Mayken, having just lost her mother, departed on the Batavia with her nursemaid, Imke, bound for Batavia and Mayken's father. Seven months into the long, arduous and brutal journey, the Batavia was stuck on rocks and taking on water. 1989 saw Gil, alone after the death of his mother, taken to a small island off the coast of Western Australia to live with his grandfather Joss. The fishing community comprised of mostly men, with feuds between some, anger between others. Joss wasn't happy to see Gil and barely spoke to him in those first weeks. In his loneliness, Gil spoke to Silvia who told him a little about a shipwreck over three hundred years prior. The Batavia had recently been discovered on the seabed near an island called Batavia's Graveyard, and as Gil learned more about it, his interest grew... The Night Ship by Jess Kidd is a fascinating account based on the true story of the Batavia and the horrors that followed the wrecking of the ship. The parallel journey of two children over three hundred years apart, and the author's note at the end describing what happened... Highly recommended.
Terrie D. Robinson
In 1629, nine-year-old Mayken, now motherless, is traveling via the ship Batavia's maiden voyage, to live with the wealthy father she has never met. She is joined on her journey by her nursemaid, Imke, to whom she is deeply attached. At sea, Imke mysteriously falls gravely ill and Mayken is convinced there is a mythical sea-monster on board who is responsible. She ventures high and low through the ship in her search to trap the villainous, Bullebak. In 1989, nine-year-old Gil, after the death of his mother, is sent to live with his fisherman grandfather on an island off the coast of Western Australia. Soon after his arrival, he learns of the notorious shipwreck of the Batavia that happened centuries ago on the coral reefs surrounding the island. Both Mayken and Gil find that cruelty, nightmares, horror and monsters can surface anywhere, anytime. There is unrest on the ship Mayken travels on and unrest on the island where Gil now lives... Historical Fiction with touches of Magical Realism is the spark that led to requesting this ARC and my first experience reading one of Jess Kidd's books. If I were to briefly describe this story, I would say it is 'very full'. Full of history and imagination, survival and tragedy, life and death, darkness and light, and everything in-between. I was moved by these parallel stories, told in two alternating timelines three-hundred years apart, of two nine-year-old main characters, each newly motherless, painfully curious, and overtly mischievous in their current surroundings as their vivid imaginations spiral through the chapters. I love how the author combines a hauntingly tragic historic event with a parallel story, in a modern timeline, that draws so many parallel themes between the two. This story slowly builds for most of the book until it arrives at the heart of each timeline. The creativity is remarkable, the writing is beautifully descriptive and yet, I was a bit confused at times, and found myself rereading sections to fully understand the inferences within the story line. This felt like an intensely concentrated story and I didn't want to miss even the smallest detail of its uniqueness or the diversity of the characterizations. Believe me, there is no shortage of characters in this story and it is the author's keen writing ability that keeps them all weirdly different and distinguishable. I highly recommend this book and I will be very busy now discovering this author's backlist! Thank you to NetGalley, Canongate, and Jess Kidd for an ARC of this book. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One: 1628
CHAPTER ONE 1628
The child sails in a crowded boat to the end of the Zuyder Zee. Past the foreshores of shipyards and warehouses, past new stone houses and the occasional steeple, on this day of dull weather, persistent drizzle and sneaking cold. There are many layers to this child: undergarments, middle garments, and top garments. Mayken is made of pale skin and small white teeth and fine fair hair and linen and lace and wool and leather. There are treasures sewn into the seams of her clothing, small and valuable, like her.
Mayken has a father she's never met. Her father is a merchant who lives in a distant land where the midday sun is fierce enough to melt a Dutch child.
Her father has a marble mansion, so she's told. He has a legion of servants and stacks of gold dishes. He has chestnut stallions and dapple mares. Red and white roses grow around his doorway, they twine together, blood and snow mixed. By day the roses raise their faces to the sun. By night they empty their scent into the air. Cut them and they'll live only an hour. Their thorns are vicious and will take out an eye.
Mayken's father left just before she was born. Mayken's mother would boast about the absent man. So wholesomely dedicated to the making of wealth. So staunch in the face of native unrest and strange pestilences. But she had no intention of joining her husband, being too delicate for such a perilous journey. Mayken doubted this. Her mother had sturdy calves and a good appetite. She had a big laugh and glossy curls. Her mother was as durable as a well-built cabinet. Until a baby got stuck inside her.
Mayken must not say a word about the baby because it shouldn't have been up there in the first place. She has practiced with her nursemaid.
"Your mother, she's dead?"
"Yes, from the bloody flux."
"How did your mother die, Mayken?"
"My mother died from the bloody flux, Imke."
"Tell me, child, how is your mother?"
"She's dead, unfortunately, from the bloody flux."
Bloody flux, says Mayken to the rhythm of the oars and the slap of the water on the bow of the boat that rocks her toward the East Indiaman. Bloody flux, she answers to the cows swung on high. They bellow as they are lowered into the ship. Bloody flux, she says to the people that swarm over her decks. The sailors and fine merchants, the plume-hatted soldiers and the bewildered passengers. Bloody flux, she replies to the pip, pip, pip, toot of trumpeters relaying commands. The ship waits in the water. Around her a chaos of people and goods are loaded from a flotilla of vessels. Like flies circling a patient mare.
Bloody flux, that is a big ship.
She is beautiful. Her upper works are painted green and yellow and at her prow-oh, best of all-crouches a carved red lion! His golden mane curls, his claws sink into the beam. He snarls down at the water.
Mayken's boat rocks round the ship's bowed belly. High up, the ship is lovely with her bright gunwale and curved balustrades and stern decks reaching up, up, into the sky. Lower down, she's a fortress, an armored hull studded with close-set, square-headed nails, already rusting.
Mayken cries out. "The ship is bleeding!"
A passenger sitting on the plank seat opposite laughs.
"The iron nails keep the shipworms out. They love to eat fresh juicy wood." The passenger leans forward and demonstrates with his finger on Mayken's cheek. "They burrow and twist and gnaw tiny holes."
Fortunately, Mayken, too, has teeth.
The man recoils. "She bit me!"
"You poked her." The nursemaid turns to the child. "What are you? A stoat? A rat? A puppy? Put your teeth away."
The man, good-naturedly, raises one gloved hand. "No harm done."
He wears the black costume of a preacher, a predikant. There is a Mrs. Predikant in a gown cut from the same cloth. Between them a line of children, big to small, dressed in the same dark wool as their parents. All with clean white collars. A minister and his family dressed for a portrait, pressed together like barreled mackerel, bumping knees with the other passengers. The eldest daughter cradles a carefully wrapped package, Bible shaped. The youngest son, a ringleted cherub, picks his nose an...
CHAPTER ONE 1628
The child sails in a crowded boat to the end of the Zuyder Zee. Past the foreshores of shipyards and warehouses, past new stone houses and the occasional steeple, on this day of dull weather, persistent drizzle and sneaking cold. There are many layers to this child: undergarments, middle garments, and top garments. Mayken is made of pale skin and small white teeth and fine fair hair and linen and lace and wool and leather. There are treasures sewn into the seams of her clothing, small and valuable, like her.
Mayken has a father she's never met. Her father is a merchant who lives in a distant land where the midday sun is fierce enough to melt a Dutch child.
Her father has a marble mansion, so she's told. He has a legion of servants and stacks of gold dishes. He has chestnut stallions and dapple mares. Red and white roses grow around his doorway, they twine together, blood and snow mixed. By day the roses raise their faces to the sun. By night they empty their scent into the air. Cut them and they'll live only an hour. Their thorns are vicious and will take out an eye.
Mayken's father left just before she was born. Mayken's mother would boast about the absent man. So wholesomely dedicated to the making of wealth. So staunch in the face of native unrest and strange pestilences. But she had no intention of joining her husband, being too delicate for such a perilous journey. Mayken doubted this. Her mother had sturdy calves and a good appetite. She had a big laugh and glossy curls. Her mother was as durable as a well-built cabinet. Until a baby got stuck inside her.
Mayken must not say a word about the baby because it shouldn't have been up there in the first place. She has practiced with her nursemaid.
"Your mother, she's dead?"
"Yes, from the bloody flux."
"How did your mother die, Mayken?"
"My mother died from the bloody flux, Imke."
"Tell me, child, how is your mother?"
"She's dead, unfortunately, from the bloody flux."
Bloody flux, says Mayken to the rhythm of the oars and the slap of the water on the bow of the boat that rocks her toward the East Indiaman. Bloody flux, she answers to the cows swung on high. They bellow as they are lowered into the ship. Bloody flux, she says to the people that swarm over her decks. The sailors and fine merchants, the plume-hatted soldiers and the bewildered passengers. Bloody flux, she replies to the pip, pip, pip, toot of trumpeters relaying commands. The ship waits in the water. Around her a chaos of people and goods are loaded from a flotilla of vessels. Like flies circling a patient mare.
Bloody flux, that is a big ship.
She is beautiful. Her upper works are painted green and yellow and at her prow-oh, best of all-crouches a carved red lion! His golden mane curls, his claws sink into the beam. He snarls down at the water.
Mayken's boat rocks round the ship's bowed belly. High up, the ship is lovely with her bright gunwale and curved balustrades and stern decks reaching up, up, into the sky. Lower down, she's a fortress, an armored hull studded with close-set, square-headed nails, already rusting.
Mayken cries out. "The ship is bleeding!"
A passenger sitting on the plank seat opposite laughs.
"The iron nails keep the shipworms out. They love to eat fresh juicy wood." The passenger leans forward and demonstrates with his finger on Mayken's cheek. "They burrow and twist and gnaw tiny holes."
Fortunately, Mayken, too, has teeth.
The man recoils. "She bit me!"
"You poked her." The nursemaid turns to the child. "What are you? A stoat? A rat? A puppy? Put your teeth away."
The man, good-naturedly, raises one gloved hand. "No harm done."
He wears the black costume of a preacher, a predikant. There is a Mrs. Predikant in a gown cut from the same cloth. Between them a line of children, big to small, dressed in the same dark wool as their parents. All with clean white collars. A minister and his family dressed for a portrait, pressed together like barreled mackerel, bumping knees with the other passengers. The eldest daughter cradles a carefully wrapped package, Bible shaped. The youngest son, a ringleted cherub, picks his nose an...
