The Ghost Ship (The Joubert Family Chronicles Book 3) by Kate Mosse.

Book Blurb
The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship. For months, its captain – Louise Reydon-Joubert – and her courageous crew has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved during the course of their merciless raids.

But now the Ghost Ship is under attack – its hull splintered, its sails tattered and burnt, and the crew at risk of capture. But the bravest among them are not who they seem. Louise is fleeing a miscarriage of justice; her lover, Gilles Barenton, is at risk of being exposed – she is forced to masquerade as her brother. The stakes could not be higher: if arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?

My Review
The. Ghost Ship is the third book in Kate Mosse’s amazing Joubert Family Chronicles. This book moves on in time to the years 1610 to 1621, and moves between Paris, La Rochelle, Amsterdam and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Minou and Piet are now in their late sixties, they have brought up Marta’s daughter Louise, who is the heroine of this book. Louise has a love of the sea, dreams of captaining her own ship, The Old Moon, and like her ancestors has a passion for righting wrongs and helping people. On the high seas of the Atlantic she seeks justice for those who are enslaved, with her loyal crew they put their lives at risk of the hangman in the hope of stopping the slave raids. This book is full of action with a new Joubert heroine who you will take to your heart.

I was so excited when the lovely people at Mantel Books sent me a copy of The Ghost Ship to review, Kate Mosse is one of my favourite authors and this Joubert Family series is breathtaking. This review is going to be full of superlatives as I loved everything about it and didn’t want it to end. After reading the first two books it was strange not having Minou, Piet and Marta as part of the main plot, but Louise is a worthy character of the Joubert name. Like her Grandmere, Aunt Alis and mother Marta, she is feisty, confident, passionate, spirited and a women ahead of her time. Living in Amsterdam has given her a love of the sea, and after a family inheritance buys The Old Moon. Early Seventeenth Century was a time of superspicion, and women were seen as unlucky by sailors so Louise couldn’t captain he own boat, and only travel if the Captain allowed her. In true Joubert fashion this doesn’t stop Louise from dreaming or from taking the opportunity when it arises. Like her grandmother she has a strong sense of right and wrong, and helping those in need, like Gilles Barenton after his uncle is murdered in front of him. If anyone can understand Louise it is Gilles who is hiding a huge secret of his own. The secrets both held of their pasts bonded them together as friends and as lovers, and as the book progressed I loved seeing both charaters flourish in what was then an unusual relationship, and I hope the next book follows their story.

Kate Mosse is a masterful storyteller, capturing the imagination of the readers and taking them on a wonderful journey with her characters. Her historical knowledge shows how dedicated she is to her research of this period of time and her understanding of the cultural and social norms of the places she writes about. I loved the setting of the high seas of the Atlantic, Louise’s stand against the raiding parties that went out trying to kidnap people to sell into slavery, including those from England and Italy. As with her past books, Kate Mosse has left me breathless with this book, the combination of fact and fiction with amazing characters, both good and bad, who feel as real as the people around you. The different settings were brought to life in the descriptive prose, the different landscapes, culture, the smells and sights, and I felt I was living it throught the eyes of her characters.

The Ghost Ship is another astounding book from Kate Mosse, a perfect piece of historical fiction. The storytelling is skilful, drawing the reader into this amazing book, connnecting the reader with the characters and taking you on a journey you will not forget. As I said above there is a huge list of superlatives I could use to describe this stunning book and I’m still not sure they would do this book justice. This is a must read book, a perfect piece of historical fiction, a book worth spending time reading, to lose yourself in and savour like a good wine. Thank you Kate Mosse for another incredible book, I can’t wait for the next instalment.

I would like to thank Mantle Books for sending me this book in return for my honest review.