"A searing haunting beauty is to be found within this dual time-line novel based on the calamitous voyage of the Batavia in 1628."
Interpreting history in the best possible way, The Night Ship dances through dreams and nightmares. Two children connected by a thread in time, live on the edge of life itself as the adults around them change their worlds forever. The chapters travel between Mayken in 1628 and Gil in 1989, and as echoes of the past breach the later timeline, a dark dread settles. Award-winning author Jess Kidd has the most wonderful relationship with words, they arrived fully formed in my minds eye, fully capable of sending goosebumps skittering down my arms. There is so much wonder to be found in the writing, a sentence would pluck at my thoughts and send them in new directions. The whisper of the fantastical settles into the darkness, my emotions were on full alert, waiting, anxious, expecting chaos and violence. Friendship and love make themselves known, they felt precious and I treasured those moments. Mayken and Gil have clambered into my heart and will remain there. This is a book that lingers in my thoughts, even days after reading it I still feel the movement of the ship and ponder the connections of the lives lived within. Joining our LoveReading Star Books, The Night Ship lifts and soothes even as it provokes and hurts, it truly is a thing of beauty.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
| Recommendations: |
Win an Escape Challenge and a copy of The Spy and the Snake by M J Robotham
Closing date: 02/08/2026
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.
The Night Ship features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Book Club Recommendations, Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month, Star Books, Recommendations
The Night Ship is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Night Ship was written by Jess Kidd and published by Canongate Books
The Night Ship has 386 pages
£8.99
