Scala Radio Book Club: The Ghost Ship by Kate Mosse
Discussing her third novel in The Joubert Family Chronicles
The bestselling author Kate Mosse came into the Scala Radio Book Club on Thursday the 6th of July to discuss her sequel to her third novel in The Joubert Family Chronicles, The Ghost Ship.
The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship. For months it has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved by corsairs, manned by a courageous crew of mariners from Italy and France, Holland and the Canary Islands.
But the bravest among them are not who they seem. The stakes could not be higher. If arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?
A sweeping and epic love story, ranging from France in 1610 to Amsterdam and the Canary Islands in the 1620s, The Ghost Ship is a thrilling novel of adventure and buccaneering, love and revenge, stolen fortunes and hidden secrets on the High Seas. Most of all, it is a tale of defiant women in a man's world.
Penny Smith opened the interview by asking Kate Mosse about the setting of her novel: ‘Kate, this is the third novel in the Bert Family Chronicles set in France in the 17th century?’
‘Yes, it starts in Paris in 1610, and all my novels have at the heart of them, a moment where history could have gone another way. And in this case, it's the lead character. Louise is in Paris. She is there at the moment walking through the streets when the great French King Henry IV is assassinated. And if that had not happened, there would not have been the French Revolution. So, it's this epic moment in history. But when you're writing a novel, the point is what does it mean for my people and my family? The Joubert family? This is the third of four, although I've written it as a standalone novel because it is a pirate novel, and that, of course is very self-contained. But they are essentially a refugee family. They know, they fled from France, to escape persecution there. They're Huguenots and they live mostly in Amsterdam. And of course, this moment means that, again, they just have to pick up their bags and run.’
Penny Smith quizzed Kate Mosse on the historical context of her novel: ‘There's a lot of historical fact in there, and do you really make sure that the history is there and that the historical facts that you gather along the way are totally correct?’
‘Absolutely. Obviously, there will be slip-ups, everybody in this period is called Henry or Louis so you always end up shuffling your Louis's and your Henry’s around a bit. Because I set imaginary characters and made-up stories against the backdrop of real history if the reader is thinking, this is great, I'm learning a great deal about the wars of religion, then I've failed as a storyteller. But when they've shut the book and they think, oh my Lord, I didn’t realize that that part of the 17th century was so turbulent and so difficult and that France was essentially ripping itself in two, then of course, that's the point about the history. So, the history has to be absolutely bang on, and if there's something that I would really like to do, for example, there's a great siege at La Rochelle, the great Huguenot Capital and it happened in 1621 and I so wanted my characters to be caught up in that, but they couldn't, they had to have fled before that. So, it's like: “oh, darn it, I missed that opportunity”. It's really important the real history is right, because real people lived and died. That's not made up. And so, you must respect it. You must get it right insofar as it's ever possible to get every single detail right.’
Penny was curious about Kate Mosse’s musical upbringing: ‘What kind of music did you grow up with then in the Moss household?’
‘My parents had an old-fashioned record player. And there were certain records that my parents had. They weren't people who listened to the radio in the house or had music on all of the time at all. But they did have some of those old Decca classics. The Emperor Piano Concerto, Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, Burt Bacharach’s Swinging Safari and my own personal favourite: Nancy Sinatra's “Boots”. They did buy records, but it wasn't very much part of growing up. I remember very, very clearly being sent off to ballet like girls were in the 1960s, to a freezing cold church hall, and you've got to put these stupid clothes on and looking and thinking, I would rather be the person at the piano than doing this, and going home and saying to my parents, I don't want to do ballet. I'm really clumsy, but I would like to learn the piano. And my parents bless them went: “Okay, you don't have to go to ballet”. And then investigating and finding a piano teacher. And then when it became clear that I did really like playing the piano and maybe I might be quite good at music. My mum used a little annuity and bought a piano for six quid. they helped me to find that classical music was something that I really loved.’
Discover more Literary Fiction from authors who have visited the Scala Radio Book Club
Lifesaving for Beginners by Josie Lloyd
Maddy Wolfe's life has just capsized. After her twenty-year marriage suddenly implodes, she heads to Brighton to search for her estranged son, Jamie. But he's nowhere to be found and for the first time, she's totally alone. That is, until she meets the Salty Sea-Gals, a group of feisty sea-swimmers.
The Yellow Kitchen by Margaux Vialleron
Exploring the complexities of female friendship, The Yellow Kitchen is a hymn to the last year of London as we knew it and a celebration of the culture, the food and the rhythms we live by.
These Streets by Luan Goldie
From the author of Nightingale Point, longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, comes a new thought-provoking novel.
Either Or by Elif Batuman
Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it's her second year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer.
Brouhaha by Ardal O’Hanlon
The second novel from the popular comedian and Father Ted star is a hard-edge black comedy of buried secrets and deadly rumours, as a suicide in an Irish border town rekindles the memory of a long-vanished girl.
Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away.
Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes
From Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending. Charting the story of a remarkable teacher through the recollections of a former student, this stunning novel is both a breath-taking testament to the power of human connection and a deeply felt love letter to philosophy.
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
A page-turning second novel from the 2020 Booker-prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain.
Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in the hyper-masculine and violently sectarian world of Glasgow's housing estates. They should be sworn enemies and yet they become best friends.
The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Ahmad
Sent back to his birthplace - Lahore's notorious red-light district - to hush up the murder of a girl, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past.
The Great Passion by James Runcie
Love and Death. Grief and Joy. Music that lasts forever. Leipzig, 1726. Eleven-year-old Stefan Silbermann, a humble organ-maker's son, has just lost his mother. Sent to Leipzig to train as a singer in the St Thomas Church choir, he struggles to stay afloat in a school where the teachers are as casually cruel as the students.
Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
From the award-winning author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Booth delivers a mesmerising nineteenth-century saga of a thespian family whose six siblings come to adulthood in the shadow of the American Civil War.
Sell Us the Rope by Stephen May
Revolutionary, poet, lover. Robber, murderer, spy. British novelist, playwright and TV writer, Stephen May joined Mark to speak about his latest book and Indie Book of the Month, Sell Us the Rope.
Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes
The long-awaited follow up to Keyes' bestselling Rachel's Holiday finds our titular heroine having hauled her life back on track, only to suffer a spectacular setback when an old flame arrives in her life once more.
Love Marriage by Monica Ali
A powerfully humane, hilarious and heartbreaking story of a young couple about to tie the knot as their families from two different cultures try to understand each other.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
An extraordinary story of how the inheritance of secrets, betrayal and memories can shape a family for generations.
A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
Nineteen-year-old William's decision to volunteer at the tragic scene of the 1966 Aberfan landslide transforms his life forever in this moving story about sacrifice and compassion.
The Unravelling by Polly Crosby
A darkly beautiful dual-timeline novel with a captivating mystery, for fans of Diane Setterfield, Kate Morton, Kate Mosse and Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
The Love Songs of W.E.B DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
A breathtaking and ambitious debut novel that chronicles the journey of multiple generations of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era, by prize-winning poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers.
Listen to Scala Radio