This wasn't the easiest book to get into - although to be fair that was more to do with some of the pages being a bit sticky, and therefore difficult to turn without tearing the paper, rather than the fact the story was set on a ship which can limit the things that can be described or the characters you can connect with and what they can talk about - but the intrigue came from seeing how the two narratives of the novel connected.
The Night Ship creates suspense by splitting between two time periods 361 years apart. In 1628 we see Mayken, a young girl who is embarking on a journey in search of her father, boarding the Batavia, a Dutch ship whose subsequent events have been described as the worst horror in maritime history. In 1989, Gil - a boy mourning the death of his mother - has been sent to live with his grandfather, who is a fisherman on Beacon Island (which is also known as Batavia's graveyard as it was off the coast of this Australian island that the merchant vessel was shipwrecked). Scientists are on the island at the time Gil moves there and they are exploring the wreck of the Batavia.
Each chapter flicks between these two timelines and the author finishes each section with some sort of cliff hanger, so you need to finish the chapter based on the other time period before you find out what happens in the next part. On the one hand, this helps with the reading as you see the similarities between the two young children - both Mayken and Gil receive some harsh treatment at the hands of the adults who are supposedly caring for them, they are both mourning the loss of their respective mothers, they are both misfits (one is a tomboy desperate to investigate life where the sailors live while the other is used to wearing fancy dress and is ill-suited to the physical rigours of island life) and they are both drawn to the supernatural - but on the other hand, as the archaeologists pick over the remains of the Batavia in Gil's time and the ship sails towards its fate in Mayken's, it could be possible to miss the point at which the two stories converge when you are trying to remember what happened two chapters earlier (even taking into consideration the brevity of each chapter).
That said, the novel works well at any time of the year - be it in summer or spring with ocean tales or in the autumn and winter with stories of ghosts and shipwrecks - and, although Mayken's strand was arguably more compelling than the passive nature of Gil's story where he is told what has happened to the Batavia, the contrast of redemption for Gil and the demise of Mayken provided a good balance as far as the overall outcome was concerned.
The Night Ship creates suspense by splitting between two time periods 361 years apart. In 1628 we see Mayken, a young girl who is embarking on a journey in search of her father, boarding the Batavia, a Dutch ship whose subsequent events have been described as the worst horror in maritime history. In 1989, Gil - a boy mourning the death of his mother - has been sent to live with his grandfather, who is a fisherman on Beacon Island (which is also known as Batavia's graveyard as it was off the coast of this Australian island that the merchant vessel was shipwrecked). Scientists are on the island at the time Gil moves there and they are exploring the wreck of the Batavia.
Each chapter flicks between these two timelines and the author finishes each section with some sort of cliff hanger, so you need to finish the chapter based on the other time period before you find out what happens in the next part. On the one hand, this helps with the reading as you see the similarities between the two young children - both Mayken and Gil receive some harsh treatment at the hands of the adults who are supposedly caring for them, they are both mourning the loss of their respective mothers, they are both misfits (one is a tomboy desperate to investigate life where the sailors live while the other is used to wearing fancy dress and is ill-suited to the physical rigours of island life) and they are both drawn to the supernatural - but on the other hand, as the archaeologists pick over the remains of the Batavia in Gil's time and the ship sails towards its fate in Mayken's, it could be possible to miss the point at which the two stories converge when you are trying to remember what happened two chapters earlier (even taking into consideration the brevity of each chapter).
That said, the novel works well at any time of the year - be it in summer or spring with ocean tales or in the autumn and winter with stories of ghosts and shipwrecks - and, although Mayken's strand was arguably more compelling than the passive nature of Gil's story where he is told what has happened to the Batavia, the contrast of redemption for Gil and the demise of Mayken provided a good balance as far as the overall outcome was concerned.