L.A. Meyer - Jacky Faber Books

Jacky Faber Books

Meyer had already written two children's picture books for a major publisher—Little, Brown and Company—before graduating from Boston University. Nearly thirty years later, he got the idea for the Jacky Faber character while listening to British and Celtic folk music on a local community radio station in his workshop. Meyer describes the moment on his website:

...the host of the program plays a long string of early nineteenth century songs that feature young girls dressing up as boys and following their boyfriends out to sea, the most well known of these being Jackaroe and Cana-di-i-o. These songs generally end up with the girl being found out quickly and threatened with being thrown overboard, but all ends happily when she either marries the boy or the captain. It occurred to me, however, to wonder what it would be like if the girl, instead of seeking to be with her lover, connives to get on board a British warship in order to just eat regularly and have a place to stay, her being a starving orphan on the streets of early 1800s London. What would she have to do to pull off this deception for a long period of time? What if she goes through the changes of adolescence while on board in the company of 408 rather rough men and boys, and her not having much of a clue as to what is happening to her? What if this ship goes into combat and she has to do her dangerous duty? And, finally, what if she falls in love with one of the boys and can never tell him of her female nature? I started making notes and seven months later Bloody Jack was done.

Meyer has stated in several fan interviews that the final book in the series will be titled She Will Play the Wild Rover No More and hinted that the book is already completed and "deep in a vault," though he further stated that he does not know how many more books will be in the series.