The Ghost Ship: An Epic Historical Novel from the No. 1 Bestselling Author (The Joubert Family Chronicles, 3)

wunerbar

I didn’t enjoy this book and found it slow and hard work to read.

The story was a nice read. However, being Dutch, it becomes soon very clear that it is fiction. The author warns that the ship crew is not historically correct (rather very small for a 17th century voc vessel) moreover that the voc never used privately owned ships, but other details are also "strange". The main character buys boerenkaas and vlaai in 17th century Amsterdam. Boerenkaas is a Dutch brand since 2007 to distinguish factory made cherse from farm made cheese. It did not exist before the 20th century. Cheese was called kaas. Vlaai is a local pie from Limburg 150 km away and was not for sale in Amsterdam until 1986 when Multivlaai opened the first shop. These strange details make the story unbelievable. It made me wonder how much of the Huegenot and inquisition details are also wrong. Also a Dutch father ships himself all the way to the Canary Islands because he did not believe his son died naturally? Rather unbelievable, since lots of young people died on the voc ships. A compass was not restored to the father after the death of a son? The voc kept books meticulously, and after death possesions were sold among the crew, the amount noted in the ship log and together with wages paid to the next of kin through the chamber of Amsterdam. In sum, too many details are off, and it is a nice fictional story to read on holidays but not more than that.