When young Mary Faber's family died in a plague in 18th-century London, she was left to fend for herself on the streets. More by dumb luck
than design, she joins up with a gang of displaced children who live by begging, theft, and selling corpses to ever-eager doctors looking for
dissection practice. But Mary has plans, and using her luck and the little book-learning her late teacher father handed off before his death,
she makes a bid for freedom on the open seas as "Jack," a ship's boy on the HMS Dolphin. For two years, she'll be hunting pirates,
visiting exotic ports-of-call, making friends and enemies... and trying to hide her gender. It was hard enough with just the sailors and the
officers, coupled with her own fiery temper, but it becomes complicated as her body matures - and she starts to notice James, a well-born fellow
ship's boy, more than "Jack" ought to.
Review
At first, the grammar threw me. Meyer writes Mary/Jack's story first-person with a fair degree of period street slang, but as the story
progressed I got the hang of it, and Meyer eased off on the worst of it. Mary has some fine adventures and a fair bit of snap to her story, managing
to lift it above the stereotypical girl-as-a-sailor tale which it could've so easily become. There's a dark undercurrent, as well, fitting the dismal
life of a street girl in London and a sailor hunting bloodthirsty pirates on the high seas; a fair bit is implied without unnecessary detail, and I
expect some readers will overlook it altogether. The ending, however, feels exceptionally awkward; I suspect that it was cropped by the editors
deliberately to draw readers into the sequel. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it enough to give it the benefit of the doubt. I hope I can find the second book
in paperback someday, if only to find out what happens. (I've seen the third book out, and the fourth in hardcover, but the local Barnes & Noble
seems bound and determined never to stock the second one when it knows I'm coming to look.)
The Bloody Jack Adventures, Book 2 L. A. Meyer Harcourt Fiction, YA Adventure/Historical Fiction Themes: Cross-Genre, Girl Power, Schools, Thieves ****
Description
Mary “Jack” Faber, known to her mates as Jacky, escaped near-certain death on the streets of London by posing as a boy aboard the HMS
Dolphin. Found out at last after the pirate captain LeFievre tried to hang her, Jacky was put ashore in Boston. Her share of the prize
money for the notorious pirate’s capture now pays her way at the prestigious Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, where the well-to-do send
their daughters to learn the fine art of ladyship. Though she still dreams of running her own shipping company, Jacky always thought it would be
nice to be a lady – and her future fiancé, the ever-so-well-bred Midshipman James Fletcher of the Dolphin, would naturally
expect a refined and proper wife – so perhaps this detour is for the best. At least she has a roof over her head, clean clothes on her back, and
three meals a day in her belly, which puts her miles ahead of her old hardscrabble life in London. Of course, becoming a lady isn’t nearly as
easy as she thought it would be, especially when her own headstrong ways and rebellious whims land her in trouble almost from the start… but
“Bloody” Jack Faber is nothing if not resourceful.
Review
A slight ratings dip from the previous book, but I still enjoyed it. Jacky proves a force to be reckoned with, by high society and Bostonian
lowlifes alike, but her plans in all levels of society seem to go wrong for her at least as often as they go right. The ongoing correspondence (or
lack thereof, as those on both sides of the pond who disapprove of their match persistently interfere with mail delivery) between Jacky and “Jaime”
Fletcher feels more like padding than plot; James seems inexplicably dense, the more I read of his letters, and I found myself thinking that Jacky
ought to cut him loose and find someone more suited to her lifestyle and personality. The fact that she proves herself an incurable flirt who keeps
running into potentially better matches make Jaime’s obtuseness more glaring. Overall, I thought Meyer brought in a few too many threads and left
them tangled or hanging at the end – which, of course, sets up Bloody Jack’s next adventure. I have the third book on hand, and hope to start reading
it soon.
The Bloody Jack Adventures, Book 3 L. A. Meyer Harcourt Fiction, YA Adventure/Historical Fiction Themes: Cross-Genre, Girl Power, Pirates, Seafaring Tales *****
Description
Mary "Jacky" Faber has come a long way from her days as an orphaned girl scraping a living off the streets of London. Since then, she's lived
as a ship's boy aboard a British sailing vessel, traveled halfway around the world, survived pirates and stranding... and, along the way, fell in
Deepest and Truest Love with the highborn James Emerson Fletcher. Once her gender was revealed, Jacky spent a disastrous term at a private finishing
school for young ladies in Boston... a stay that ended with her name well-known among the local rabble-rousers and police, and with half the school
in flames.
Stepping off a whaler (where she'd booked passage as companion to a captain's wife), Mary finds herself once again in London... and, here, her
celebrity as the roguish "Bloody" Jack precedes her by way of a book published by a friend from Boston. This cannot bode well for her planned surprise
reunion with James, whose family has actively discouraged their courtship, but Mary isn't one to back down from a challenge. Soon, she's swept up in
another wild adventure as her impulsive nature and good intentions land her in one scrape after another, from society misunderstandings to brutal press
gangs and back to the high seas with her own ship, a Letter of Marque... and a price on her head.
Review
Sometimes, you just want a good adventure yarn with larger-than-life characters and near-nonstop action. The Bloody Jack series is an excellent choice
for those times. This book, the third installment in the ongoing series, carries the tale back to the world of pirates and sailing ships, where Mary/Jacky
has always seemed to belong. Though mostly a rollicking yarn, she is no perfect angel of a heroine, and her habit of leaping before she looks causes her at
least as much trouble as it gets her out of. As she starts encountering old friends and enemies, some of those spur-of-the-moment actions come back to haunt
her. Even at her lowest points, though, she always keeps an eye out for opportunities for freedom, a little money, or learning something new to help her
through future potential problems. Her courtship with James continues to linger, mostly on the back burner, but at least in this book he starts showing some
signs of being a worthy suitor for the famous "Bloody" Jack; in the previous installment, he proved remarkably obtuse, to the point where I wondered what Mary
ever saw in the twit. The ending sees her on her way to her next adventure with yet more touched lives and wanton destruction floating in her wake. I expect
I'll read the fourth book in the series, at least.
