Publisher, Listen & Live Audio (June 2008)

NOTE: RETAIL EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, compact cardboard, jewel-case or DVD shrink-wrapped boxes, with full-color art.

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Audie Award - 2009 Excellence in Production

Audie Award - 2009 Solo Narration/Female

Audie Award - 2009 Teens

Odyssey Honor Award

ALA's Notable Children's Recordings List

YALSA's Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults List

Booklist's Editors’ Choice

Earphone Award - Audiofile Magazine

Starred* Review - Booklist

Starred* Review - School Library Journal

"With sass and song, Katherine Kellgren portrays Jacky Faber as schoolgirl and part-time tavern performer. Fighting off pirates in BLOODY JACK barely prepared Jacky for the battles she faces after being given the heave-ho as midshipman on the HMS DOLPHIN; losing her true love; and being sent to a Boston boarding school. Kellgren's terrific portrayal of Jacky’s reluctant transition to finishing school extends to the cast of snobbish classmates, low-life Bostonians, sailors, prostitutes, a creepy constable, and a mad minister who is a descendant of Cotton Mather. Jacky's endless propensity for trouble leads the listener on a rollicking journey through 1800s America with the promise of more to come as she boards a whaling ship at novel's end." —Audiofile Magazine (Earphones Review)

"The audacious Jacky Faber is back in L.A. Meyer’s fabulous sequel (2004) to Bloody Jack (2002, both Harcourt)... Katherine Kellgren delivers a stunning performance with a myriad of amazing voices. Her cockney Jacky is just right and makes the story more accessible to listeners who may struggle with the Brit-speak. Loyal, clever, sassy, impudent, and just a little bit naughty, Jacky is a protagonist to admire. Simply delightful." —School Library Journal (Starred Review)

"Kellgren continues her tour de force portrayal of Mary “Jacky” Faber in this stand-alone sequel to Bloody Jack, a 2008 Odyssey Award Honor title. Kellgren voices Jacky’s Cockney patois with such historical accuracy that listeners are pulled into the early nineteenth century, breathlessly entranced by Jacky’s heart-on-her-sleeve, knife-in-her-bosom exploits. Shifting from Bostonian blue-blooded to boozing Irish accents with ease, Kellgren differentiates each character’s dialect with a skill that reaches the crest of emotion yet never spills into over-the-top exaggeration. Kellgren lyrically provides Jacky’s talent for melody as she effortlessly sings the sea shanties and Irish tunes that heighten the drama and anchor the account in the nautical realm. This masterful production extends the appeal to a wide range of listeners eager for a bloody-good tale. Fans will be happy to know that the next title in the series, Under the Jolly Roger, also read by Kellgren, has recently been released by Listen & Live." —Booklist (Starred Review)

Bloody Jack is back and this time, she’s facing a situation far worse than a ship full of murderous pirates. Curse of the Blue Tattoo, L.A. Meyer’s sequel to the enormously popular Bloody Jack is just as bawdy and entertaining as the original.

Left in Boston by the H.M.S. Dolphin crew when they discover her true sex, Jacky Faber finds herself navigating entirely new waters. It turns out that bloodthirsty buccaneers have nothing on the young ladies at the Lawson Peabody School! As Jacky observes, "…they’re like any bunch of thirty or so cats thrown in a sack and shaken up good. They’re mean in ways that boys never even thought of being." It isn’t long before Jacky shows her true colors by being arrested for "exposing a Female Part" (her knee) while jigging in the streets and is "busted down" to serving girl instead of student. Jacky soldiers on, getting herself into scrapes that her darling beau midshipman Jaimy Fletcher couldn’t even begin to imagine, including uncovering a shady minister’s evil secret and fixing a horse race with voodoo.

And where in the world is seafaring Jaimy? As her letters to him continue to go unanswered, Jacky grows more and more worried. Still, at book’s end she takes an assignment as "lady’s companion" to the captain’s wife aboard a whaler headed for London. Astute readers will notice that the whaler’s crabby captain has a peg leg and won’t be surprised if in the next Bloody Jack Adventure, Jacky ends up hunting the great white whale!

About the Author: L.A. Meyer received a master of fine arts from Boston University, and is currently the curator and exhibitor at the Clair de Loon Gallery in Bar Harbor, Maine. He lives in Corea, Maine.

About the Performer: Katherine Kellgren has recorded over sixty audiobooks including Bloody Jack, which was the winner of an Audie Award, a Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, and ForeWord Magazine’s Audiobook of the Year. Both Bloody Jack and its sequel Curse of the Blue Tattoo were named Odyssey Honor Titles by the American Library Association in 2008 and 2009 respectively. She has appeared onstage in London, New York, and Frankfurt. Her recent work includes everything from the role of Laura in a regional production of The Glass Menagerie to appearances on Comedy Central. She is a graduate of The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.