A dual timeline of a modern day Australian woman, Tess, and her Dutch ancestors, Saskia and Aris, who experienced a shipwreck and one of the bloodiest mutinies in history in 1628. Based on the true story of a Dutch East India Company ship!

This story captivated me. It's part maritime archaeological mystery as Tess researches how her family heirlooms are connected to her ancestors who survived the shipwreck. In the historical timeline, it's a frightening adventure travelling from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies.

Each of the 3 POVs felt rich, and the way they wove together was brilliant. The parallels between Saskia and Tess were touching as they both dealt with the loss of their parents. The historical events were brutal, but I think it was mitigated by having the modern timeline to talk about it from a historical perspective, so not every gruesome detail is a lived experience. There is a romance in each timeline. At times it felt obligatory, but I think overall it complemented the story as a subplot. It's part of the themes of hope and moving past grief. 

I loved that the reader knows the significance of a certain object uncovered by the maritime archaeology team, even if the characters don't. That reveal at the end was satisfying. 

If you enjoyed The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner or The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton I think you'd definitely enjoy this! It's such a unique story at the confluence of Dutch, Australian, and Indonesian history that I knew nothing about. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas Nelson Fiction Audio, and Stefanie Koens for the audio ARC. All opinions are my own.

Daughter of the Wreckage was as intriguing as it was devastating. Based around the true events of the wreck of the Dutch ship Batavia off the coast of Australia in the 1600s, this story introduced me to a piece of history I had never read or even heard about before.

Told through dual timelines and three perspectives, we follow Tess in the present day as she sets out to finish an article her late father had been working on, one with ties to their own ancestry. In the 1600s, we are taken aboard the Batavia, where the pieces of the past slowly begin to connect with Tess’s story.

I loved being in both timelines! The archaeological side was especially fascinating, and I was constantly trying to piece together how everything connected. The way Tess’s story came together with the women aboard the ship was exceptionally well done.

The pacing was masterfully done. The beginning was steady and kept me engaged, but once I hit around 50%, I could not put it down.

The writing was incredibly atmospheric. You can almost feel the sway of the ship and taste the salt in the air. Though devastating and heavy at times, there were still moments that made me laugh and made my heart happy. I loved the strong elements of finding love and holding onto faith, and these were characters I genuinely cared about and rooted for.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the narration was fantastic. The narrator added another layer to an already immersive story.

I appreciate the opportunity to have read this ARC. I enjoyed it so much that I’ll be purchasing a trophy copy for my shelf and am happy to support Stefanie Koens as an author!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Fiction Audio for the opportunity to listen to this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a heartwarming story with a dual timeline. I loved the characters and their development and growth. The plot was well-paced and captivating. I highly recommend this clean and wholesome read. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

Wow! Gripping and intense, Daughters of the Wreckage gives its characters and readers meaning to hold onto when life completely falls apart. Almost impossible to put down, this book will become your best friend this fall. Based on the real life 1628 shipwreck and mutiny aboard Batavia, Koens' research and faith shines though this gritty, hope-filled historical fiction. Readers are left speechless at the depravity of man, but encouraged that resilience and faith can withstand even the most horrid of trials.

Each of the three points of view brought a different element to the tale: Saskia brought the everyman humanity, Aris fulfilled the higher educated, crew member responsibility, and Tess brings a modern eye to the drama. I loved the intensity and detailed accounting of the passengers in the 1628 timeline. Their fight for survival had my anxiety through the roof as I read faster and faster, hoping they could endure such earth-shattering loss and attacks. Tess brought much needed relief to calm the stress, tension, ticking clock pressure, and offered a break from the violent happenings. Her chapters were a much appreciated break to reset and keep this novel categorized as historical fiction instead of thriller.

Daughters of the Wreckage pulls readers in, making them beg for answers and hope amidst terrifying horrors, both natural and human induced. It begs readers to answer for themselves: where would you pull from if you were in such circumstances? Your own mettle? Another's love? Faith? Readers will love Saskia and Aris' humanity as they find inner resolve and fortitude to withstand when help isn't coming, resources dwindle, fighting among the survivors has already started, and life as they know it is over.

Troupes: Multiple POVs, dual timelines, quest for answers, violence, heartbreak, survival, faith, love, loss, big reveal
Spice: 1/5 🌶️
Gore: 3/5 🩸
Language: 1/5 👀
Triggers: extreme suffering, violence, sexual assault, and death

Thank you to Thomas Nelson Fiction and Zondervan Audio and NetGalley for this ARC!

Where to begin...

Saskia, Aris and Tess tell the story of the famous Batavia wreckage off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. Through the eyes of three different (fictional) eyes, we get a glimpse at this real historical event. This book features a dial timeline that spans across 389 years.
I found that the timeline shifts were not hard to follow, and constantly shifting back and forth through time when key things happened actually aided in making the moments even more impactful.

I thoroughly enjoyed this well researched and enchanting story about a real life moment in history. Though we will never know exactly what happened with the passengers of the wreckage and subsequent mutany on shore, we begin to piece together the events through archeology and can use educative thinking to begin to imagine what those passengers may have been thinking, feeling and experiencing.

Saskia and Aris felt like very well fleshed out characters. They had thoughts, motives and rational behind every move that they made and I so enjoyed learning about their lives and experiences in the 17th century. Saskia grows so much within the story from a young girl who had already experienced far more than her fair share of emotional hardship in her young life to a girl that will never be a girl again after the events of the book. Though we never find out what happened to Saskia and Aris after they were rescued, Koens provided is with some wonderful promises of what might have happened to them that keeps you thinking of this story for weeks.

Koens' writing style flowed well and the story kept me gripped from start to finish. The narrators did a truly wonderful job with the story and I highly admire that the Author/production company chose an all Australian cast for the audiobook narration, since the book is set in Australia and the author is also Australian.

The way that Koens wrote about stress, grief and loss was moving and empathetic to the reader. Tess's father died of a heart attack 6 months prior to the opening scene of the book and so you really get a sense of how she was feeling based off of her internal thoughts about her past, and her life. I can see how other readers thought that Tess was difficult to like, however I can see how the grief of losing the only blood she ever really had had shaped her thoughts and feelings through the events of the book.

I loved the feeling of mystery and suspense through the first half/most of the book. It kept you hooked for more.

On a very serious note, I really admire the way that Koens handled the topic of sexual assult and violence within the novel. By alluding to without ever explicitly stating that it happened, she maintained the victim's dignity as much as possible whist also protecting readers in a respectful way. Also on the topic of violence, I noticed other readers talking about there being too much explicit violence in the story, however, I do not feel that way. This is a FICTIONALISED story based on a REAL historical event. That real event was brutal beyond imagination, so this portrayal was the right amount of detail for the actual history of the event, in my humble opinion.

If you are sensitive to violence in novels, this book may not be for you, but, if you appreciate accurate and well researched historical fiction, than this book as absolutely for you.