The Ghost Ship

February 1, 2023

The New York Times best-selling Mosse's "Burning Chambers" series concerns the Joubert family and opened during the religious wars--wrought 1500s. Now it's 1628, and Louise Joubert has disguised herself as a man to escape a longstanding family feud. With Anna Van Raay, also disguised and running from an unjust accusation that would mean death, she's hiding aboard a vessel that's become a "ghost ship," its guns silenced and many of its crew dead as it drifts off the Barbery Coast. With a 40,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2023
Mosse concludes the Joubert family trilogy that began in The Burning Chambers (2019) and continued in City of Tears (2020) with an exciting yarn set at sea centered on Louise Reydon-Joubert, the granddaughter of the Huguenot couple Minou and Piet, the leads of the first two novels. The third begins in 1610 when Minou and Piet travel from Amsterdam to Paris with 25-year-old Louise to claim her inheritance from her father, a man she never knew. Louise is haunted by hazy memories of her mother's violent death when she was a child, and she yearns for a life on the sea. A decade later, Louise finds her determination never to fall in love tested when she crosses paths with Gilles Barenton, who struggled to escape his abusive mother and live as a boy though he was born female. Louise saves Gilles, but their differences in station and Gilles' secret keep them apart until they both set sail on the Old Moon, where romance and adventure await. A thrilling tale and a rewarding end to the Joubert saga.

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August 18, 2023

This is the third novel by Mosse about the Huguenot diaspora of the 17th century (following The City of Tears), when French Protestants fled France for Amsterdam and other points west after the death of their protector, Henry IV, and the renewal of their religious persecution. The book's starting point is May 13, 1610. Louise Reydon-Joubert, newly 25, accepts her dead father's inheritance. The next day, the French king, Henry IV, is assassinated by a Catholic fanatic. Louise removes herself to La Rochelle, bastion of the Huguenot faith, where she buys a ship. She befriends a young man, Gilles, who's really a disguised woman, and they're soon attracted to each other. When Gilles's mother appears and tries to extort him, there's a tussle. Louise stabs her, and she and Gilles flee before anyone finds out. On board ship, there's another murder (not by Louise), of the ship's captain. Louise is now captain of her own vessel, the Ghost Ship. Gilles, Louise, and the ship's crew end up attacking corsairs along the west coast of Africa to liberate enslaved people. The story stretches but doesn't rupture the bounds of historical realism, and Mosse tells it well. The ending, however, is anticlimactic. VERDICT For lovers of historical fiction and seafaring stories.--David Keymer

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.