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 is the award-winning author of Himself, Mr. Flood's Last Resort, Things in Jars, The Night Ship, and the Nora Breen Investigates series. She has a PhD in creative writing from St. Mary's University in London. She grew up in London as part of a large family from Ireland's County Mayo and now lives in North Yorkshire. Jess is currently developing her own original TV projects with leading UK and international TV producers. Learn more at JessKidd.com. "In 1628, a Dutch ship bound for Batavia (now Indonesia) sank off the coast of Australia. This audiobook is the fictional accounts of a 9-year-old Dutch girl who perished on the adjacent lonely island and a 9-year-old misfit Australian boy three hundred years later. In a gentle, innocent tone, Fleur De Wit narrates the story of Mayken, a privileged girl of aristocratic lineage and boundless curiosity. As Mayken befriends sailors and dreams of pirate adventures, De Wit adds verbal touches of character. Alternating chapters narrated by Adam Fitzgerald describe the struggles of Gil, whose drug-addicted mother's death results in his being raised by his grandfather, a gruff fisherman who lives on the remote island in 1989. In an Australian accent, Fitzgerald describes Gil's discovery of artifacts from the fifteenth-century wreck."
