JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Night Ship by Jess Kidd

ONE SHIPWRECK.
TWO MISFITS.
THREE CENTURIES APART.

1629. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship’s stratified world. She soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck and as tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.

1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his cranky grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the West Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a boy struggling with a dark past, and Gil’s actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.

Capturing dual timelines, Jess Kidd’s fourth novel The Night Ship reimagines the true story of an Indian Ocean shipwreck in the early 1600s. The Batavia, a Dutch East India Company’s flagship vessel, wrecked off the coast of Western Australia and three-hundred surviving passengers were stranded on a nearby island. Soon, merchants staged a mutiny and began killing off most of the survivors – they imprisoned the rest and by the time help came, over half the survivors were dead.

The Night Ship’s first timeline, set in 1628, follows nine-year-old Mayken on a voyage to find her father. She is accompanied by her nursemaid Imke, who falls ill relatively early into the journey. Mayken, in her naivety, is convinced that Imke’s sickness is caused by an eel-like monster from mythic legend; Mayken journeys throughout the Batavia in search of the creature, trying desperately to save Imke’s life.

The other timeline is more than three centuries later in 1989, where we meet the lost and lonely Gil. His mother has just passed and he’s now living on a remote island with his grandmother. That island happens to be the one that Mayken and her fellow survivors were shipwrecked on when the Batavia fell, and Gil finds himself fascinated by the history of the island.

“By the bottom of the ladder, the heat and the stink overwhelm Mayken: cow dung and something acrid and tarry. A hot stench that suffocates like a grip over the nose and mouth. Mayken breathes as best she can, ignoring the panic rising inside her. It is even darker here than on the gun deck.”

Mayken is highly perceptive and driven to exploring outside of her comfort zone – she dons disguises to venture down to the ship beneath, meeting all sorts of characters who take refuge in the vessel. I did find her storyline to be more interesting than Gil’s largely because tension was building ahead of the shipwreck and knowing the mutiny was ahead proved exciting.

Jess Kidd has quite a mastery with prose, and the balance of description and dialogue – she captures that inquisitive nature of children very well, as well as that lonely, lost feeling when a child craves a parent. Both Mayken and Gil share a sense of independence, Mayken because she already possesses it, and Gil because he’s been thrust into a position where he’s forced to find his own way.

Whilst Mayken’s journey to find and capture this eel-like monster fell to the wayside later in the book, it did add an element of magic realism to the story – an out-of-this-world sense of folklore that I quite enjoy in literature. Some reviewers noticeably felt it didn’t hold the significance or reflection it needed in the book, but without it I feel the pacing on Mayken’s journey would’ve lapsed and it wouldn’t been a slow journey to the shipwreck.

“He takes the scrubby path down the centre of the island. The sky is white-blue and the light beats up off the coral shards. Gil doesn’t want company but wouldn’t mind knowing that living, breathing people are nearby. He’ll go and watch the scientists.”

Towards the end of the book, when tensions on the island are starting to rise, the constant switch in POV was rather jarring. I’d be invested in the mutiny on the island, the murders, the direction of that story, but too often we’d be forced back into Gil’s story and the balance between these two perspectives felt a little off.

Admittedly, there was also capacity for greater exploration into the ‘villains’ of the story – so much bloodshed on that island and yet, not much insight into why that might’ve been. The mutineers felt too clear-cut, not enough depth to them to understand a bit more about their motives.

“It’s dark, they’ve sat at the table that long. Like they do in Italy, says Silvia. Eating, talking, except she’s the only one doing the talking. Gil picks at the burnt cheese on the cannelloni dish. Silvia knocks back the sherry. She sways when she gets up to butter more bread.”

Fierce and haunting, Jess Kidd’s The Night Ship is recommended for readers of literary fiction and historical sagas. Readership skews 25+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Night Ship
Jess Kidd
July 2022
Penguin Random House Publishers

The Bay by Allie Reynolds

Kenna arrives in Sydney to surprise her best friend. But Mikki and her fiancé Jack are about to head away on a trip, so Kenna finds herself tagging along for the ride. Sorrow Bay is beautiful, wild and dangerous. A remote surfing spot with waves to die for, cut off from the rest of the world. Here Kenna meets a mysterious group of people who will do anything to keep their paradise a secret.

Sky, Ryan, Clemente and Victor have come to disappear from life. But what did they leave behind? As Kenna gets drawn into their world, she sees the extremes they are prepared to go to for the next thrill. And everyone seems to be hiding something. What is her best friend involved in and can she get her away? Because one thing is becoming rapidly clear about The Bay: nobody ever leaves.

Allie Reynolds’ second psychological thriller The Bay is largely set within the confines of a secluded Sydney beach, centred around a group of friends who will do anything to keep the location a secret. The Bay is another adrenalin-charged read for fans of thrillers.

Kenna heads to Australia to surprise her best friend Mikki, who is about to marry a man she barely knows. Kenna’s true intentions for visiting are to convince Mikki to end the relationship, but before she’s able to do that she’s caught up in a surfing and camping holiday that Mikki and her fiancé already had planned with their friends. Suddenly, Kenna is without a phone and sharing a beach with Mikki’s mysterious and arguably suspicious group of surfing friends.

“He’s all over her. I’m not convinced there really are any mosquitoes. I think it’s just an excuse to touch her. I glance at Mikki, embarrassed on her behalf, but she doesn’t react. Almost as if he does this a lot.”

Allie always keeps the group of suspects contained within a secluded environment – with Shiver, it was the ‘reunion’ in the French Alps, and here in The Bay, it’s the unknown beach. The group is always a well-maintained number of people, not too large that you start to confuse characters with each other, and not so small that you can easily guess who the culprit is.

As the characters in The Bay start being killed off, the pool of suspects gets smaller and smaller. And yet, at no point did I feel like I knew who the killer was. Each character has the potential to be responsible – they’ve all got a killer instinct, quick reflexes, and a past they wish to hide.

“The shortboarder pulls alongside the longboarder, gesturing angrily. Behind them, the bodyboarder darts about as though intending to cut up the middle. The wave shuts down, sending them flying in a tangle of limbs, boards and foam. I hold my breath until all three heads surface.”

Dispersed throughout the book are flashbacks from the course of Mikki and Kenna’s friendship, which shows just how long they’ve known each other and what they’ve overcome together. Kenna, once an avid surfer, is still reeling from the drowning accident that killed her boyfriend, and this surfing trip with Mikki might be what she needs to overcome her trauma with the ocean. If only she could trust the people around her…

Most of the book is written from Kenna’s perspective, with a few chapters from the other characters and the occasional italicised chapter from the killer’s perspective. There’s something about Allie’s writing that is incredibly compulsive – dialogue is a real strength and does a lot of the groundwork for establishing the dynamic between the characters. We learn a lot about how the characters deal with their trauma by how they talk about it with others, which explains why the group are a little slow to figure out there’s someone willing to kill off other people to keep their beach a secret.

“The hairs on Jack’s thigh rub my ankle. This guy has no sense of personal space. Clemente looks over at us, his expression dark. Then I notice Sky and Ryan watching me too.”

Fans of Allie’s first novel Shiver will be pleased with this follow up. Another compulsive, unique psychological thriller, and this time with an authentic Australian setting. Readership skews 20+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Bay
Allie Reynolds
June 2022
Hachette Book Publishers Australia

Black River by Matthew Spencer

A long, burning summer in Sydney. A young woman found murdered in the deserted grounds of an elite boarding school. A serial killer preying on victims along the banks of the Parramatta River. A city on edge.

Adam Bowman, a battling journalist who grew up as the son of a teacher at Prince Albert College, might be the only person who can uncover the links between the school murder and the ‘Blue Moon Killer’. But he will have to go into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together the clues. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley, meanwhile, is part of the taskforce desperately trying to find the killer before he strikes again. Adam Bowman’s excavation of his past might turn out to be Rose’s biggest trump card or it may bring the whole investigation crashing down, and put her own life in danger.

Matthew Spencer’s Black River is an enthralling, engaging crime thriller set in Western Sydney. A young girl has been murdered and found on the grounds of an elite boarding school in Parramatta, and with a serial killer already terrorising Gladesville, Sydney is on edge. Is this the work of the Blue Moon Killer? Or is this a copycat?

Another journalist using their writing skills to craft a page-turning thriller, Spencer wrote for The Australian for over two decades. As a result, his writing is taut and meticulous. He crafts a story with intrigue and he brings to life characters that feel three-dimensional and authentic. There is a lot of insight into the police investigation, as well as the media coverage around this new murder. Additionally, Black River uses a fresh setting – Western Sydney – that I haven’t recently come across in Australian crime.

“A cloying drawl. Repulsion slithered in Riley. Who had who in whose pocket? Sydney was a corrupt town, and Canberra would be worse. It was a slimy game and Bishop was a player.”

This police procedural moves between the lead investigators, Rose Riley and Steve O’Neil, and established journalist Adam Bowman, who has lived in the area most of his life and whose traumatic childhood helps uncover potential truths about the latest murder.

One of my favourite parts of the book was the working relationship between the police detectives and journalist Adam Bowman – it showed how a symbiotic relationship can benefit both parties, and hopefully draw out the killer. It’s not something I’ve seen examined in crime fiction to this level of detail; the book illustrates how police detectives form those deals with journalists to control and manage the release of information to the public. Black River shows great intimate knowledge of the Australian media landscape.

“The new constable, the Parramatta detective, was first in, sitting at the end of the row of desks with a laptop. Riley had noted her at the school on Thursday and again yesterday and liked what she saw: diligence and intelligence.”

The resolution does indeed come at a rush – we’re almost through the entire book when we discover the truth about the murder. Part of me wondered if it happens too quickly, because the pacing of those final pages doesn’t match the pacing of the rest of the book. But at the same time, I did enjoy how we felt we’d understood what happened to the young girl and then Spencer throws a couple of unexpected twists at the reader.

Initially I did find it confusing grasping the details of this murder vs. the details surrounding the established Blue Moon Killer. For most of the novel, people can’t seem to decide whether this murder is the latest work of the serial killer, and the moving back and forth between the two possibilities does give the reader a bit of disorientation.

“The front oval with the media pack was down to the right. Network vans, camera crews, tents, desks, cables, a mobile canteen, newspaper and radio reporters, photographers, bloggers. A police media tent stood in the middle, the big top at the circus. Bowman was on the highwire, looking down. To stay on the trapeze, he needed the cops.”

Taut, tense, gripping and highly compelling, Matthew Spencer’s Black River is for readers of crime, thriller and mystery fiction. Readership skews 25+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Black River
Matthew Spencer
June 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

The Coast by Eleanor Limprecht

Alice is only nine years old in 1910 when she is sent to the feared Coast Hospital lazaret at Little Bay in Sydney, a veritable prison where more patients are admitted than will ever leave. She is told that she’s visiting her mother, who disappeared one day when Alice was two. Once there, Alice learns her mother is suffering from leprosy and that she has the same disease.

As she grows up, the secluded refuge of the lazaret becomes Alice’s entire world, her mother and the other patients and medical staff her only human contact. The patients have access to a private sandstone-edged beach, their own rowboat, a piano and a library of books, but Alice is tired of the smallness of her life and is thrilled by the thought of the outside world. It is only when Guy, a Yuwaalaraay man wounded in World War I, arrives at The Coast, that Alice begins to experience what she has yearned for, as they become friends and then something deeper.

Set in a 19th century leper colony, Eleanor Limprecht’s historical fiction The Coast pivots around a cast of characters all directly impacted by leprosy in Australia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Exploring love, family and courage, and set in the remote Little Bay just outside of Sydney, we meet a series of characters all forced into isolation after being diagnosed with leprosy.

The Coast centres around a largely unknown time in Australian history – the oppression of people suffering from leprosy and their subsequent shaming and forced isolation.

This novel offers what feels like a birds eye view of that era. We meet characters suffering from leprosy or perhaps working in the colony, but the story is void of any judgement or opinion. Eleanor is simply presenting the time as it likely happened, for us to interpret and understand on our own.

“I was not brave enough to ask Dr Moffat why he came now, rather than when we were feverish. Asking questions of adults was insolence. Wearing white cotton gloves, he scraped our skin with a little razor and placed it in a tiny lidded dish.”

Written in both first and third person, each chapter moves between characters – their POV and the accompanying year is stated at the beginning of the chapter. Eleanor offers an intimate voice, paired-back and emotional as we come to understand each character and how their lives have been impacted by the leprosy colony.

Eleanor’s writing has much to offer, bringing to life quite a large suite of characters and inviting us to fall in love with each of them. They all seem quite hopeless in the beginning, plagued by something they don’t understand or perhaps something they cannot control. But, over time, characters intersect and find solace in each other and their experiences. As the reader, we warm to their plight and find their journey both heartbreaking and heartfelt.

“He watched a moment’s grief pass over Clea’s face, but when she raised her hand to touch her hair it was gone, as quick as a fish leaping. He knew more than she thought he did.”

For those perspectives written in third person, Eleanor’s voice takes on that of an omniscient POV – we understand not only their movements and their situations, but their perspectives and feelings on their surroundings. And for the protagonist Alice, who is written in first person, whilst she is treated as an outsider and her leprosy forces her into isolation, she gets to spend time with the mother who left when she was young (who also suffers from leprosy). There is a contrast here that is quite interesting to read – her illness allows her to reconnect with her mother, and there are elements of her life that are a comfort to her. But at the same time, she and her mother are treated as lepers, hidden away from society with only each other for company.

Just a tiny note, but I did find it a little confusing at first trying to keep track of the characters. The perspectives shift quite frequently and I had to flick back to triple check whose story I was reading, what year it was, and how that corresponded to the previous chapters.

“Some days, instead of fury, I succumbed to weariness. I would stay in bed longer than I should, watching the square of daylight from the window shift across the bedroom. I read all of the book Dr Stenger brought me, all of the books I could borrow, but it was not the same as school.”

Vivid literary fiction with harsh, wild landscapes and damned but hopeful characters, The Coast is suitable for readers of literary fiction and historical sagas. Fans of familial tales might also enjoy this one. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Coast
Eleanor Limprecht
June 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor

On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home.

Ronnie’s going to find her, she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can’t be gone, Ronnie won’t believe it.

Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it. She has seen what people are capable of. She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible.

Lewis can believe it too. But he can’t reveal what he saw that afternoon at the creek without exposing his own secret.

Five days later, Esther’s buried body is discovered.

Hayley Scrivenor’s debut rural crime novel Dirt Town follows the disappearance of 12-year-old Esther Bianchi, who disappears after school on one blistering hot afternoon. Set in a remote New South Wales town nicknamed Dirt Town, Esther’s disappearance ripples through the small town. This close-knit community that parents once considered safe, suddenly doesn’t seem to be.

There is quite a large cast of characters who pivot through the story. Esther’s friends Ronnie and Lewis, who struggle to understand the events of her disappearance, and Esther’s mother Constance, who gravitates towards her best friend Shelley to help process her grief. We also have Sydney-based detective Sarah Michaels, tasked with solving the crime.

“Sarah found that, in general, people were less leery of unmarried, childless female police officers in her line of work than they were of single men. Even if some of them guessed she might be gay, even if that wasn’t their cup of tea, they were less suspicious of her than they were of Smithy.”

Dirt Town is worthy of its praise, offering a suite of complex and three-dimensional characters and presenting an ending that felt fresh and unique.

Hayley Scrivenor perfectly captures the barren landscape of regional New South Wales, moving POV between all of the characters who circle Esther’s disappearance. Because the book blurb tells us Esther’s body will eventually be found, we know where the story is headed. We know, at the end of the four-day plot, Esther will be discovered and we will be close to uncovering her killer.

“Constance’s eyes moved of their own accord to the tall woman’s choppy haircut. The short hair had been dyed an unnatural, fire engine red and was peppered with auburn and blonde streaks. It was one of those haircuts where, however it turns out, at least you can’t be accused of not making an effort.”

Hayley’s writing is observant and taut. Each point of view not only addresses Esther’s disappearance, allowing the plot to propel forward, but we also learn more about that character’s past – their history in the town, their relations with other characters, and their potential involvement with Esther on the day she disappeared.

Whilst I did find the order of events to be a little confusing – Hayley moves between past and present in quite a staccato, chaotic manner – the characters do anchor the story and keep you turning the pages. Hayley’s writing is poignant, with plenty to offer the reader.

“I’d wanted to tell the detective more about Esther. That her parents worried too much about her, not seeing that she could, in fact, do anything. Of course, I couldn’t have said I sometimes pretended that Esther’s dad was my father when he drove us to and from swimming.”

Atmospheric with a tightly wound crime and a pacey plot, Dirt Town is recommended for readers of rural and outback noir, crime thrillers and small-town mysteries. Readership skews 25+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Dirt Town
Hayley Scrivenor
June 2022
Pan Macmillan Publishers Australia