The Night Ship
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.
Jess Kidd
Jess Kidd’s writing dances on the edges of the seen and unseen, where the world of the living collides with the spectral. With a flair for blending the supernatural with vivid, character-driven narratives, Jess invites readers into hauntingly beautiful worlds where the past never quite lets go and the dead aren’t always silent.
Born in London and raised in County Mayo, Ireland, Jess’s love for storytelling began early, nurtured by a family steeped in rich folklore and Irish myth. But it was her own fascination with the liminal—those in-between spaces of life and death—that truly shaped her voice as a writer. This enchantment with the ghostly and the mysterious can be felt in her debut novel, Himself, which received critical acclaim and earned her a place among the brightest voices in contemporary fiction.
More books by Jess Kidd
