The Good Ship

by Jeremy M. Wright

In the middle of the Atlantic, a doorway opens. Through this doorway is an island only explored by those still trapped here.

Thirteen-year-old Annabelle Cross has traveled this stretch of the ocean before. But this time around there’s something very different. For one thing, there has never been an island. Secondly, there’s a shadow in the fog that oddly looks like a pirate ship. It even acts like a pirate ship as her family’s boat is torn apart by cannon fire. Now stranded, she finds a group of children who teach her everything the island offers to those chosen to stay. Forever.

The children have essential rules. First, no one is allowed to leave the tree houses at night because the moving shadows will take you to places unknown. Second, never wander into the woods alone because the paths have a strange way of changing behind you. These are two basic rules Annabelle can’t seem to follow.

There is the hope of escape for those eager to take it. The children have a secret project being built deep in the island. This insane plan will either get them killed or set them free, but this is the ultimate answer to find their way back home.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Audible Audio

First published September 22, 2019

About the author

I was born in 1974 in Omaha, NE. I have since uprooted my life there and have moved with my wife to the beautiful country hills of Arkansas.

I took a love of reading and telling stories at an early age.

I strongly believe in most of the writing advice I’ve learned from teachers and self-help writing books. Here is where I disagree. I've been told by many to "write what you know!'". That's all well and good if you know a lot. However, for some of us, our knowledge is running a very short race, probably with a mental "bad knee" that makes us run more in circles instead of a straight line. So I usually choose to write about what I don't know. How else do we learn new things if we never explore the dark unknown corners of existence?

I have also chosen to resist all urges to be pigeon-holed as a single genre writer. I love reading different types of novels just as I love writing them. How else can we evolve if we're typing away day after day about a private investigator who has a soft spot for pretty girls in short skirts, following his own rules, and dependency on whiskey? Fifty novels later has our protagonist really learned much? Grown? Or changed by any fascinating degree? Probably not.

So I explore because it's what we humans do best. I write in the range of mystery, fantasy, thrillers, dramas, sci-fi, action/adventure, comedy, mainstream, satire and anything else that might seem challenging enough. Basically, if the plot idea has strong legs, the characters a great purpose, then the idea deserves to be written. Although I will tell you to never expect a Danielle Steel or Nicolas Sparks type novels from me. I've got to draw a line somewhere!

So the rundown is simple if you're expecting to find my work nicely bundled up in one genre because it's the genre you're most comfortable traveling those pages, then I'm not likely an author for you. But, if you want to go on a fun road trip and see those odd side attractions everybody else misses because they're too busy catching the same old (yawn, yawn) attractions thirty million other people have seen, then I am an author for you.

If you like you can take my hand because I see a journey just up ahead and around that dark corner. You shouldn’t worry, not just yet, because I know the way. We'll probably make it through all right, with our sanity, just maybe.

Reviews

[Library of a Viking · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story starts in the middle of the Atlantic, where Annabelle Cross, her dad and her brother are sailing. Suddenly, they are pulled through a doorway. Annabelle wakes up on an island while her father and brother have disappeared. Fortunately, she isn’t alone and soon discovers that other lost children and fantastical creatures habit the islands. Annabelle soon discovers that nothing on this island is what it seems.

Reading this book reminded me of books such as Narnia and Peter Pan. It is a fun and cute tale. The Good Ship has a lot of mystery, and Jeremy Wright does a great job making the reader intrigued. The writing style is very accessible, and the pacing is excellent. We also learn about the different creatures on the island and how time works which were interesting to read. I appreciate that Jeremy Wright has a whole chapter on the aftermath, where we learn about what happened to many of the characters. The cover is beautiful as well!

Although I enjoyed this book, I think that some of the romance felt quite forced. Furthermore, I would have wanted the characters to be more fleshed out. Annabelle was a great character, with some depth, but I did not feel that the side-characters were memorable.

At the beginning of the book, Annabelle goes through a very traumatic experience, where she loses her father and brother and is stranded on a remote island. Although Jeremy Wright does focus a bit on her mental health, I don’t think there was nearly enough emphasis on this trauma.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any young reader.

Rating: 3.75 / 5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Erin]

eBook Giveaway Win!

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an awesome book that sends you on a journey into an amazing and unique island. I could not put it down! He is a new author and I love supporting starting out authors. :) I hope you can too!

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5.0

July 1965, 13 year old Annabelle Cross, along with her father and brother, are traveling across the Atlantic ocean, when suddenly a doorway of light appears. Traveling through it, darkness around, their ship is attacked by pirates. Annabelle wakes up on an island, father and brother nowhere to be seen, with a group of other children. Annabelle will soon find out that nothing on this island is as it seems.

Jeremy Wright did a good job on making this book descriptive and detailed. The setting and the characters felt real to the point where I could clearly picture them. The plot was entertaining. While the ending of the book was written unexpectedly, I liked the way it brought closure to the book.

I liked the story but I wished the book was longer. I wanted to see Annabelle grow a relationship with the other children and see her contributing to survival on the island.
The romance felt forced to me, considering Annabelle is only 13.
We were introduced to some other characters but only see them a few times in the book, never really getting to know them.
In the beginning of the book Annabelle gets shipwrecked on the island without her father or brother. While we do see her having some mental struggles, I felt as if there wasn't enough focus on the fact that she was without them. It felt more of a side thought.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a quick, easy, fantasy adventure read.

VIOLENCE: There was a short part in the book where a character has some suicidal thoughts.
LANGUAGE: One profanity was said that came out of nowhere. It didn't match the book.
ROMANCE: Nothing goes beyond a kiss.

*Thank you to the author for this book I won through a Goodreads Giveaway. All thoughts and opinions are mine.*

[Yazmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story seemed like a dream or a fairytale I wanted to stay in.
It held my interest from start to end and I'm delighted to see a mix of evil forces and their prortrayal with the children.
I cannot recommend this book enough.

[LilliSt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have received a digital copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you!

3 stars - full of great ideas, but not quite my cup of tea

Now, this one was a real mixed bag. It's the story of 13-year-old Annabelle who accidently sails with her father and brother through a doorway in the ocean. They come out in a fantastical world that is very reminescent of Peter Pan: children who do not age live on an island and their enemy is The Jade Army, the greedy and hateful pirates.

These pirates take her father and brother while Annabelle is swept up to the children's island and becomes part of their community. Quite soon we find out that they are actually plotting to leave the island soon and go back through that doorway on the Good Ship they have been building for a long time. And as such stories go it is up to Annabelle to find her place in this community and play her part in making the plan work.

I find it really hard to rate this book as it was sort of all over the place.

The good stuff: it's chock full of great ideas - the houses in the trees, the cavern and the Good Ship. There's ancient goddesses (one good and one evil, of course) and speaking beasts, mischievous fairies and much more.
But here comes the less good stuff: it is kind of frustrating that the great imagery is marred by wonky grammar. Quite often the autor would jump between tenses from one sentence to the other, which totally breaks the immersion for me.
The other aspect I was not a fan of was that the story was very much plot-driven, while I never had a clear idea of the personalities of the characters and why they actually acted the way they did.

More than once one of the protagonists would do something incredibly stupid just to get a series of events going and this is not a way to advance the plot that works for me personally. Also, the pacing was quite odd at times.

I think to appeal to an adult reader this story would need to delve a bit more into characer development and receive some editing. However, I do think this would be a really nice read for tweens and teens who might enjoy the good stuff more and not be as deterred by the less good stuff.

(As an aside: being a sailor myself I am not quite sure how much the author actually knows about building and sailing boats. This unfortunately made immersion more difficult for me.)

[Millennial Book Review · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was provided an ARC of this book by Reedsy

This book had a very interesting idea at its core, where a young girl travels through a portal and finds herself on a strange island unlike any seen on Earth. The unearthly place she finds herself in creates a fascinating world for the story. I enjoyed reading as Annabelle explored the island and it’s secrets, as well as the mythos given for how the island works and the dark forces at play in the story tied together. The author did an excellent job balancing the overall plot with examining the lives of the children on the island and their conflict with the sinister Jade Army. I found the book to be easy to read and the story was paced really well. The story overall is a fun, quick read, great for all ages.

I liked the story, but some of the writing decisions left me feeling underwhelmed. A lot of the world-building was done through dialogue that served as exposition-dumps. This same pattern of how information was revealed kept happening over and over and it was starting to annoy me by the end. In some circumstances, this was the only way to provide backstory, but in others it felt unnecessary. The ending, following the resolution of the main conflict, felt a bit weird to me, only because the tone of it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the book up to that point. There were also some plot elements that weren’t taken full advantage of in my opinion, but the main confrontation did have a satisfying conclusion.

While I liked this book generally, I do feel like I’m a little older than the target audience and some story beats hit differently for me. This is a fun adventure story with a very intriguing concept, but it wasn’t quite for me. I’d recommend it to younger readers looking for a fun adventure story.

[Bryony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sweet tale reminiscent of older books where the protagonist is swept into another world entirely to end up having the adventure of their life.

Set in the middle of the Atlantic, Annabelle and her family are drawn through a doorway of light only to be attacked by an pirate ship. Annabelle wakes up on an island of children and has to adapt to a new way of life having lost her father and brother to the evil Jade Army.

The story was great. I love fish out of water stories and this was like a modern day knock-off CS Lewis. I think it truly harked back to the real fish out of water fantasy for children which is what really got me into reading. If you love that kind of thing then I'd really recommend this.

I loved the characters, good and bad but felt like they could be fleshed out a bit more - especially the secondary characters. As it was a children's book I felt like the romance was a bit forced considering the fact that they were only thirteen. The writing was very visual and cinematic and it painted pictures in my head of a world totally different from the real world.

Overall, a joy to read. Interesting story, plenty of characters, wonderful world. Highly recommend to all children of an appropriate age or if you just love children's fiction.

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

[Ian Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun adventure For all readers aged 11-100 Watch out spoilers below!

This is fun advventure fiction that is mainly aimed at young adults. However, it was still a good read for a grown-up, even though it was quite short, and therefore a quick read that only took a few hours.
The story follows the fate of a young 13-year-old girl who is washed ashore on a strange island after her families boat is destroyed by a strange green pirate ship shortly after they are sucked through a strange doorway of light, that appears in the middle of a sudden Atlantic storm.
The story continues to chart her time on the island of the people and strange animals that she meets, the potentially lethal fauna & flaura and everyones constant fight for survival, especially after sundown. She also learns about the secret plan to make their final escape from their island paradise prison back home to the realities they came from. With spys in their midst, plot twists and saboteurs also, will they make it?

The book contains some mild peril and the topic of young relationships. It is suitable for ages 11+.

[Mrs. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy of The Good Ship from NetGalley.  Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

This book could be so great! It has a wonderful plot, good description and a lot of creativity. What it is lacking, however, is character development. Interactions of characters seem almost forced, since there was no build-up to create necessity for the interactions that do happen. There was zero romance until, suddenly, there was romance. I didn’t see it coming. One of the characters teasingly called the new girl, “your girlfriend” in reference to another teenager. I had to reread to see which kid the comment was referring to because until that point, there had been no emotional connection to the girl by anyone—even the ‘tour guide’ who found her washed up on the beach.

Other than the oddness between characters, this was a pretty interesting story.

[Lacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very creative book but it really needs some editing. The book starts in the first person present tense but keeps switching back and forth to past tense. Some of the wording was incorrect and the sentences lacked flow. It gets a little better the farther you read but the errors are just glaring. The premise of the story was a good one and I can say it's a unique idea that hasn't been done before. Is it realistic? No, not remotely. But it was interesting. Would I read it again? No.

I won this book through Goodreads Giveaways. All opinions are my own.

[Sadie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

This is the story of a thirteen year old girl whose family gets swept into a portal in the middle of the ocean and their adventures on an island.

I think the premise of this book was good, but that it wasn’t executed very well. It has vibes of some well known young adult fantasy series, but the narrator is a bit over the top. She waltzes into a society that is decades old and takes over, without understanding the dynamics. Everything becomes about her. It was annoying, at best.

[Shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how to categorize this novel.

This book could be hidden in YA. It could be hanging out in fantasy. An early teenage girl is traveling via yacht with her dadand brother when their boat slips between a crack in space. They find themselves being attacked by pirates. She loses consciousness and finds herself, sans family, on the shore of an island, and there the adventure begins. My biggest problem was the last chapter. I think it should have been called an epilogue, as it was jarring figuring out its like 50 yrs later and exactly who was narrating.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Booksgosocial for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

What a marvellous adventure that was. In the beginning, I was unsure where the story was going to go especially when you considered the fact that the characters are mainly children.

I enjoyed every minute of this book and I read it in one sitting.

[Jennifer Girard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an intriguing book with great pace! Was hard to put it down! Love the Nerverland atmospher. The evil force lurking around the island. The plot twist that reveals who those hangry pirates are.
The battle of good vs evil.
I felt the ending came too fast, but that might be because I liked reading annabelle and Nate's adventures on the island.

[Dorothy Mbori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was very imaginative. The action scenes were well written and very engaging. I would recommend this book to kids in middle school and above. Very enjoyable read.

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Fairytale

This was an interesting story and wasn’t what I expected. I enjoyed the supernatural elements and the weaving of them into the children’s lives. It was a sweet and fun story.

[Collette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read! I would have loved discovering this as a middle schooler - perfect for adventure lovers!

I won a copy of this book through Goodreads Giveaways. To my surprise, the copy I won was signed! Many thanks to the author and Goodreads!

[Diane Hassler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads giveaway

An adventure story of a portal that takes the characters to a magical place that stops time. The struggles the people go through to escape and the magical world they survive in.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book

[Alaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this ebook in a Goodreads giveaways.

I really enjoyed it.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quick YA fantasy read. It was slightly over 220 pages and fast paced. It had good world building without being too much because it was a relatively short book. Characters were likable.

I received this for free from a Goodreads giveaway.

[Patricia Kaniasty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story. Reminded me of a cross between "Peter Pan" and "Lord of the Flies". Exciting and scary. Kept you turning the pages.

[Alicia Marsland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rollicking adventure

With good grammar, and excellent morals, this is fine book for young teens. I particularly enjoyed how the young heroine discovered her special talent.

[Polly Fellows · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, based on the idea of slipping through some sort of time/space warp into another world. Some good ideas here but only partly convincing and the ending is weak.

[V · Rating 1 out of 5]

the single worst thing I've ever read. no idea why I actually finished it.

[dorothy cannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure escapism

I really enjoyed this fantasy novel although I feel it was a children's book.
However a bit of childish escapism goes a long way. (Look at Harry Potter!!)

[Shauna Bosquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

This was an amazing book! A fairy tale for all ages. Once I started reading, I didn't want to put the tablet down!

[Terrie B Wright]

Holds yout interest

Held my interest throughout the book. Fun, interesting characters, the storyline keeps moving so you are wanting to know what happens next.