Mary 'Jacky' Faber

Jacky Faber is the irrepressible heroine of L.A. Meyer's Bloody Jack series — twelve novels following a London street orphan from the gutters of eighteenth-century England to the quarterdeck of a Royal Navy ship, and from there to a life that takes her across the oceans as sailor, pirate, spy, privateer, and entertainer. When she disguises herself as a boy named Jack Faber to join the crew of HMS Dolphin, she begins an adventure that will take most of her life to fully unfold.

Meyer writes Jacky with a distinctive narrative voice — she tells her own story in a breezy, first-person style that captures her resourcefulness, her irrepressible spirits, and her genuine love of life. She is not simply a girl playing at adventure but someone whose particular circumstances have given her skills and a perspective that allow her to survive and thrive in worlds that should exclude her entirely.

The series spans multiple continents and decades of Jacky's life, moving through colonial America, the Caribbean, Revolutionary France, and the waters of the world. Her relationship with officer James Emerson Fletcher — Jaimy — provides the romantic thread that runs through all twelve novels.

Begin with Bloody Jack (2002) and read in order.