Jacky Faber and her classmates at the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston are kidnapped while on a school outing and transported in the hold of a slave ship bound for the slave markets of North Africa.

While trying to run a respectable shipping business in 1806, teenaged Jacky Faber finds herself in France, spying for the British Crown in order to save her friends.

Now rich, Jacky Faber has purchased the Lorelei Lee to carry passengers across the Atlantic, and believing she has been absolved of past sins against the Crown, she docks in London, where she is arrested and sentenced to life in the newly formed penal colony in Australia.

Still yearning to be reunited with her beloved Jaimy, Jacky Faber continues to collect intelligence for the Crown as she leads guerrilla attacks against Napoleon's forces, poses for the artist Francisco Goya, is kidnapped by the Spanish Inquisition, and travels with a gypsy caravan.

"In 1809, just when it looks like Jacky Faber and her beloved Jaimy will finally find their romance, Jacky is accused of treason and must flee Boston while her friends attempt to clear her name. Of course that means wild adventures for our fun-loving heroine, who manages to secure a job as a governess--and run away with the circus"--Provided by publisher.