Evocatively written from the perspectives of two children in two time lines, one around 1628 the other 1989, to highlight the true story of the shipwreck of The Batavia,
Embroiled in fairytales, myths, prejudice and brutality this is so literarily visual it captures the reader with its beautiful prose and imaginative characters. Excellently researched and executed, this is a throughly satisfying read.
Also, the audio is delicately narrated by Fleur De Witt.
With thanks to the author and Netgalley for the arc.

This one was quite a fun read for me. I like reading books with dual storylines and the idea of it being different timelines kept me hooked throughout.
The characters Mayken and Gil are born 360 years apart. But their stories are nearly the same. Both have lost their mothers and are on a ship sailing towards other guardians.
It was a really interesting read and I had do much fun reading this book

I so badly wanted to like this book. There was a haunting quality to the writing and the imagery that the author conjured up during both sections of the dual timeline narrative. The story, unfortunately, was not one that I enjoyed.
The two narrators are children. One in the 1600s, having to dress as a boy to get some freedom, while the other lives in 1989, and wants the exact opposite. Neither's surroundings lend themselves to making them feel happy and/or comfortable. I found it hard to know who they should trust and who they should run away from. Their life is the central focus of the entire tale.
In the older timeline, we have an extra-long voyage plagued with issues. We sort of know what they are heading towards since the 1989 timeline talks of the ship and its ultimate journey. The issue I faced was seeing the point of the two connections. Given the journey that the author put me through with the writing that drew me in, I wanted to be better invested in the outcome when I finished and set the book aside and not just because it was extremely sad.
I left this experience knowing I would pick another book by the author, but I cannot recommend this particular one to anyone.
I received this book as an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading.

This book is set in two totally different times (300 years apart) this is a true story. Whilst I enjoyed the story it jumps between the years chapter by chapter.

Jess Kidd’s latest offering is inspired by a real shipwreck off Western Australia in 1629 where a young girl, Mayken, travelling to join her father in a new life in the Dutch East Indies deals with the trauma of the recent loss of her mother and explores the ship in search of a mythical monster who could be causing the sickness amongst the passengers. 300 years later Gil is sent to his grandfather on a remote island after his mother dies and learns of the famous wreck and the ghost that haunts the small fishing community.

Jess Kid is always good for a ghost story that offers more than a few decent chills. The shared loss of the two main characters holds the narrative firm beyond the shared setting. They are both impressively resilient and engaging characters but the narrative dragged for some reason. Perhaps it was the frequent switching between strands, but there was a curious lack of energy particularly in Mayken’s story which was odd considering the inevitable drama of the wreck and its consequences

Gil’s story is better. His interactions with the locals and his grandfather, who are generally on bad terms, as well as the archaeologists investigating the old wreck give the story more depth and focusing on these elements would have created a stronger narrative. Discovery of the ship’s (and Mayken’s) fate through these stories rather than directly from the 17th century storyline may have been a better approach. Despite this there is still much to enjoy.

This book deserves all the praise that has been heaped upon it. Jess Kidd writes so beautifully and with so much power, I could barely stand the thought of coming to the end. Read it now.

This is the third book I’ve read by Jess Kidd and, while I enjoyed it, I have to say it wasn’t my favourite. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t come away with the same feeling I had with the others – a real love of the characters and a feeling of loss that they wouldn’t be in my life anymore.

Characters are so important to me in books. I don’t have to like them – but I do have to connect with them on some level. Here I couldn’t. And I think that was down to place. My imagination really let me down here. I couldn’t picture Batavia or the island it ran aground on with anywhere near the clarity I think I needed to to understand what the characters were going through. Yes, I know life in both places was hard, and brutal, and cold, and that people ended up looking after themselves because there was no other real way to survive. But I couldn’t appreciate it. Which meant that their fates didn’t mean a lot to me in the end. And that’s a real shame because I think if things had of ‘clicked’ with the place, the people would have made more sense and I would have enjoyed the book more.

Saying that, this isn’t a bad book by any means. Jess Kidd still writes beautifully, something I’ve thought since the first time I turned a page in one of her novels. And she mixes the mystical with the everyday really well – I am not one for supernatural type books (though strangely, I love this in the TV I watch!). With hers, though, it seems perfectly natural for a ghost to appear in a scene, or a message to cross the centuries.

Which brings me to the question, would I recommend it? Yes, I think I still would, with caveats because I would recommend Jess Kidd as an author I think everyone should read – though I would probably start with Himself.

I read Jess Kidds book Things in Jars two years ago and absolutely loved it, so I was so excited when I got the chance to read this as an ARC. The Night Ship is an excellent historical fiction, however I had somehow expected more magical realism, but it didn't really matter. Both Mayken and Gil are interesting characters and peculiar children with their own type of trauma and dark past and I could see a kinship between them. The two timelines have interesting stories and it made me want to learn more about the real Batavia. But I think because I had expected more magical realism the connection between the main characters in the two timelines was a bit thin. I hoped that maybe there would have been a bit of a communication between them and there was an object present in both timelines that I thought would have had more importance than it had.

The events of the Batavia's voyage and subsequent shipwreck are the focus of The Night Ship, which is set between 1989 and 1628. Some readers may be familiar with the story, while others will be introduced to it for the first time; either way, Kidd brings the story to life with a vividness that will keep readers interested.

In 1989, Gil, age 9, is sent to live with his gruff grandfather, a fisherman who toils the coral reefs of the Houtman Abrolhos islands off Australia's western coast. He meets the bored wife of one of his grandfather's enemies, who tells him lurid stories and explains what happened to the people on the Batavia.

Following her mother's death in 1628, Mayken, the eight-year-old daughter of a wealthy trader of the Dutch East India Company, is sent to live with her father on the cutting-edge ship Batavia. During the course of the voyage, this resourceful and inquisitive youngster must find her place in the ship's bustling environment, and she soon discovers dark secrets that threaten the expedition and its passengers.

Kidd is a brilliant storyteller with poetic prose. Her protagonists are complex and likeable, and the reader will become emotionally invested in their plight. Repetitive words, talismans, and the legend of a deadly sea monster connect the tales told by Gil and Mayken.

Captivating in its depiction of loss and the extent to which people will go to defend those they love, The Night Ship is a novel not to be missed. A glimmer of light shines through the darkness of Gil and Mayken's tales. This is the kind of book whose impact lasts long after the last page has been turned.

This historical fiction masterpiece will captivate and inspire readers. It's a must-read.

A slow burn that is worth perservering for this atmospheric novel that is very well written. Looking forward to more from this author

Told in twin timelines, one set in the 1600’s, and based on true events. We follow the adventures of a Mayken, an adventurous dutch girl on board a ship doomed to become shipwrecked on an island and a more contemporary timeline in the late 1980’s on the same island with Gil. He is an unusual boy who has been sent to live with his granddad in a remote fishing community. Both kids are 9 years old and both motherless thrust into unusual circumstances and unconventional in their own way.

Both children have lost their mothers in unpleasant ways and both children are haunted by something supernatural. In Mayken’s case it’s a giant eel monster Bullebak who she thinks bit her nursemaid and in Gil’s it’s Mayken’s ghost.

Told in third person present tense, this is a slow burn book, the pacing is languid and like all of Jess Kidd’s books, the language is evocative and something to be savoured rather than hurried. The chapters however are often short, sometimes very short. The violence in both timelines increase with the last third being quite brutal at times, but in a matter of fact way that makes it strangely easier to read.

Both children’s characters are very well developed and are uniquely flawed despite being so young. Gil has had a very unsettled life with his drug addled mother who refused to talk about anything negative.

It was interesting how this book showed the two children’s lives being affected by feuds and actions of the adults around them, and the often dramatic effect this had. I love how their story’s intersect for a moment as they see each other eye through time and twin hag-stones.

What I liked:
It is beautifully written without being flowery

What didn’t work for me:
I wish the ghost story element was more developed.


Due for publication on my blog on the 22nd of December 2022

The Night Ship is a wonderful story told from two different perspectives: Mayken is travelling to the Dutch East Indies on board the Batavia in 1629; in 1989, Gil is sent to live with his grandfather after he death of his mother. Gil finds out about the shipwreck of the Batavia when he meets some archaeologists, and becomes really interested in what happened.

The story switches between the two children, and I couldn’t wait to read about each perspective. Mayken is a happy, curious child, who is desperate to explore the world below decks - which due to her status, she isn’t supposed to do. So she enlists the help of a cabin boy and disguises herself. Mayken searches for a monster below decks, the Bullebak, as things start to go wrong on the ship. But it soon becomes apparent that the threat doesn’t come from a monster.

Gil doesn’t want to live with his uncommunicative, distant grandfather. He doesn’t want to fish with him either. And her certainly doesn’t want to talk about what happened with his mother. He finds solace in his friendships with an ancient tortoise called Enkidu, and Silvia Zanetti, the wife and mother of his grandfathers enemies, Frank and Roper (the latter sounds like he should be locked up, to be honest).

I absolutely loved this book. Mayken and Gil are both such tragic characters who only need someone to care for them. It’s a magical story, made more so by the imaginations of the two children. It’s a shame that the real world has to encroach on them.

Highly recommended.

Book of two halves not quite meshing, Historical, supernatural, dual timeline

I knew nothing about the seventeenth century shipwreck of the Batavia, which is what half of the story is about. The Batavia sank off the Australian Coast. Central character in this one is a privileged, naïve young girl on a voyage with her nursemaid to the father she has not met, following her mother’s death The second lonely and motherless child is also isolated in a cut off world, this time, in the late twentieth century, one of the small islands offshore Australia, where that shipwreck happened. An island with a fractured group of inhabitants, and a group of scientists investigating the shipwreck

Two lonely children, outcast from the safety of their homes, living in some way between worlds, not knowing whom they can trust,

There are, maybe, supernatural monsters, and certainly, monsters wearing human faces, but without humanity beneath the skin

I found my interest coming and going with this one, and thought that maybe, unlinking both stories would have created a book with a better narrative drive. Two separate books.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. A well executed and developed storyline that drew me in from the beginning. A good read.

I couldn’t quite get along with this story. The prose is beautiful, Mayken is a charming kid, and I wanted to scoop Gil up in a big hug. But the slow-paced, character-driven style, which felt very literary, didn’t gel with the protagonists being children, and didn’t give me enough tension stay engaged. I didn’t dislike it, but I would probably have put it down and forgotten about it if I didn’t have an ARC I needed to review. That said, lots of the emotional gut punches were well-pitched, and the point-of-view being from kids both soften and heightened the moments of brutality. (if you’re sensitive to terrible things happening to/around children, this story is not for you.)

I’ve seen some people characterising this as magical realism/fantasy but I don’t agreed with that interpretation of the story - I’m assuming it comes from the ‘creature’ the Mayken spends the voyage looking for. But she’s a little girl with other kids to play with, stuck on a ship for months, of course she’s going to believe a story about the monster in the hold and then try to catch it. At no point did I believe that creature was real.

Will there ever be a Jess Kidd novel that I don’t love?

I think not. I hope not. I can’t imagine it.

Kidd’s latest book, "The Night Ship," is all that I desired it to be. But going into it, I was a little concerned that with it being a tale of historical fiction inspired by the 1629 wreck of the Dutch ship, Batavia, Kidd’s signature magical realism would be cast aside in favor of, well, history.

My concern was all for naught, though. Now don’t get me wrong: Kidd has done her historical research, and she’s done it well. But to my delight, still incorporated within the history of the story is her unique brand of magic and the supernatural, allowing for ghosts and a mythical sea monster to be weaved into the narrative.

There are two timelines – one that follows nine-year-old Mayken in 1629, a young girl aboard the Batavia, and one set in 1989 following Gil, also nine years-old, as he is sent to Western Australia’s Beacon Island to live with his grandfather. The storylines are equally compelling, haunting, and heartbreaking. Kidd does a masterful job of unfolding Mayken and Gil’s stories in a synchronistic way so that poignant moments and major plot points align brilliantly.

A more beautiful novel, "The Night Ship" could not have been. And this is why Jess Kidd continues to be my most favorite writer we have today. There are few quite like her.


My sincerest appreciation to Jess Kidd, Canongate, and NetGalley UK for the Advance Review Copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

Jess Kidd has written a fascinating story based on the real life sinking of the Batavia in 1629 intertwined with a boy on a remote Australian island. The setting of the book is dark and mysterious and the depths of human cruelty are laid out for all to see. A captivating read.

A really enjoyable read, based on true events. The dual stories written alongside each other and interlinked is a really interesting style of writing.
Magical and sad.

This is a beautifully written story. The author really knows how to tell a story, with characters that really connect.

What a read this is! I enjoyed Jess Kidd's 'Things In Jars' so was looking forward to this, and it's another cracking read.

I love a story which has its base in historical fact, and this centres around the wreck of the Batavia, a ship wrecked in the early 17th century in the waters around modern day Australia.

The main historical character is Mayken, a young girl sailing with her nursemaid to the home of a father she's never known. Mayken is brave and independent, breaking out of her role to explore the ship, and befriending the sailors. There's something a bit mystical about her and her maid, a theme which weaves through the story.

Meanwhile, in the modern day, Gil is living with his grandfather after the traumatic death of his mother; he's an outsider and cannot fit in with the remote community where his hermit grandfather fishes. Gil is intrigued by the scientists diving the wreck of the Batavia nearby, and feels some kind of connection with the girl we know as Mayken.

This is full of atmosphere, beautifully written characters, and lots of sympathy. Such a good read, thank you.