I was born in Perth in Western Australia and lived there until I was around 10 years old when my mum, my sister and I moved to Adelaide in South Australia. There isn't a lot I remember about my early years of schooling (or life really) but I do remember going on a couple of school excursions, one of which was to the port city of Fremantle. There we visited the Round House (a prison) and what was then called the Maritime Museum but is now known as the Shipwreck Museum.
I remember seeing the salvaged and carefully preserved hull of the ship known as Batavia which was wrecked on the Abrolhos Islands off the remote northern coast in 1629, and I have been interested in the story ever since. Most times when I go to Perth I will head down to the museum and wander through the galleries. I am moved every time by the grisly fates of the crew and passengers who had to survive not only harsh terrain but also their own murderous companions.
In Amsterdam in 1628 a young woman named Saskia boards a boat named Batavia to take her aunt and her cousin on a journey that will take them to the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia) where they will join her uncle. Saskia's aunt had adopted her following the death of Saskia's mother and she rules with an iron fist. The main thing that matters is keeping up appearances. The only thing that Saskia has of her mother's is a small porcelain tulip that she wears as a pendant.
They settle into life on the Batavia where Saskia meets Aris Jansz, the ship's under surgeon. She also makes friends with other passengers, some of whom probably wouldn't meet with her aunt's approval but she is confined to her cabin with chronic seasickness.
However, there are mutinous acts being undertaken by the crew, led by Jeronimus Cornelisz, an under-merchant, and others, and it isn't really a safe place for a young woman to be wandering around a ship.
Fast forward to the present and Tess is a high school teacher who is grieving the sudden loss of her father. She has been tasked with completing an article for a scholarly publication about the shipwreck of Batavia and the subsequent atrocities which led to the survivors of the shipwreck having to fight for their lives, both to survive in the harsh and unforgiving environment but also at risk of being murdered by their shipmates.
Tess heads to the Abrolhos Islands with her guide, Drew, where she is taken to an archaeological dig where the archaeologists are searching for clues about what happened all those years ago.
It turns out that Tess has a recently discovered connection through her mother's side of the family to some survivors from Batavia. The modern day story and the historical run in parallel as the archaeologists locate an item and then we hear the story as it unfolds in the past. While Saskia and Aris do whatever they have to do to survive, Tess is in a fight of her own to try to find a way through the terrible grief she felt at the sudden loss of her father.
The descriptions of what happened to the people on board Batavia are harrowing and made even more so by the fact that many of the incidents are historically accurate. I think that the author was very brave in not shying away from sharing the terrible atrocities that were committed in the days and weeks that followed the shipwreck with the reader.
I listened to the audio of this book. I do often struggle when I transition from one audiobook to another with different accents and this one did take me a long time to get used to the Australian accents. I know that probably a bit weird given I am Australian and so I hear Australian accents all day every day. I liked two of the narrators but the third didn't really work for me and I am not really sure why.
I do want to give a shout out to the cover designer of this novel. It's a really lovely, eye catching novel.
In what is a pretty big coincidence, I found out just before we visited the Netherlands for Christmas in 2022 that the town where my brother in law lives, Lelystad, is also the home of a replica of Batavia and so we spent a morning wandering through the ship and learning all about the techniques for making things like rope, building ships and more.
I am heading to Perth in mid January to watch the sailing, and you can be sure that I will once again be visiting the museum, and this time I will also have the story of Batavia, as told by Stefanie Koens, in mind as I wander the galleries.
I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted by The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here.
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