This story is captivating to say the least. 'I loved the first book, Bloody Jack, in this series and I liked this one even better! I can't wait to start the next one, Under the Jolly Roger! When you write a story about an orphan that is a girl, then she makes it aboard a ship while pretending to be a boy, and then she is discovered a girl and dropped off in Boston at a Fine Lady School to learn to become a lady, the adventures just keep o'coming! Then add a wild and mischievous streak to this girl, and then through in the mix that it is the early 1800's. 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! Still, at book’s end she takes an assignment as “lady’s companion” to the captain’s wife aboard a whaler headed for London. And where in the world is seafaring Jaimy? As her letters to him continue to go unanswered, Jacky grows more and more worried. 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. 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. 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.

Left in Boston by the HMS Dolphin crew when they discover her true sex, Jacky Faber finds herself navigating entirely new waters. Meyer’s sequel to the enormously popular Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy is just as bawdy and entertaining as the original. 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 by L.A. Meyer