Bloody Jack

Bloody Jack [sound recording] : [being an account of the curious adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy] / by L.A. Meyer ; read by Katherine Kellgren. – Roseland : Listen & Live Audio, p2007.

6 compact discs (8 hrs.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
ISBN: 9781593160944
Unabridged
Subtitle from container

1. Orphans --Fiction. 2. Pirates --Fiction. 3. Sea stories. 4. Seafaring life --Fiction. 5. Sex role --Fiction.

813.54

After the death of her parents and little sister, Mary Faber is turned out on the streets of London where she bands together with other orphans to beg and steal to stay alive. When the gang’s leader is bludgeoned to death in an alley, she decides it’s time to change her living conditions. Removing his knife and clothes from his dead body she cuts off most of her hair; changes her outfit, and heads for the docks. There H.M.S. Dolphin is taking on cabin boys. She tells the recruiters that she can read, and she’s signed with the Royal Navy as cabin boy Jack Faber. Life aboard the Dolphin, while rough, is a good deal better than life on the streets – as long as no one discovers she’s a girl.

Meyer, a former naval officer himself, has written a whopping good adventure tale with an eager young heroine who gets herself into multitudes of scrapes and escapes as fast as the fascinated reader can turn the pages. An added treat in the audio edition is Kellgren’s ability to give convincing voices to all of the characters, whether they’re Jacky’s Cockney accents, the English and Irish seamen, French pirates, Jamaicans, or Americans, all are vibrant and convincing. The sure pace of her narration adds another touch of excitement to an already thrilling tale.