The Seekers

The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 3

By: John Jakes

Narrated by: Marc Vietor

Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

The end of the colonies' fight for independence ushers in a fresh and even more glorious struggle to build the new nation. It is an epoch ripe with the energy of a country in its springtime. Two young heirs to a family dynasty turn their eyes west - the frontier beckons.

It took a special breed to give up the comfortable life along our eastern seaboard. Who knew what lay beyond? But when Abraham Kent fell in love with his beautiful stepsister, he knew that leaving was the only course open to him.

The Seekers is the third in the Kent Family Chronicles following The Bastard and The Rebels.

©1975 John Jakes (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

The Seekers

Any additional comments?

These comments address The Kent Family Chronicles, the entire series of eight books, in audiobook format. All books are narrated by Marc Vietor. The entire series is approximately 125 hours of listening. Shortest book is 15.5 hours, longest over 26 hours. Vietor does a good job with narration, although the uniqueness of male voices is problematic. Most significant, you’ll have little difficulty determining who-says-what-to-who. Tempo and pacing fine, albeit the narration is a bit slow for my taste, bumped it to 1.25.

The entire series is a broad spectrum history of the United States from just pre-Revolutionary War through the 1890s and a chronicle of the Kent family through this time. Beginning with Phillip through the generations to the children of Gideon, a great-great-grandson. Members of the clan fight in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, are at the Alamo, the California Gold Rush, the Great Chicago Fire, the Johnstown Flood, and much more. The author skillfully intersperses vignettes of imagined and factual history. For example, two of the fictional characters of the series are sheltered for a few days at the home of the Lincolns in rural Kentucky - a baby is part of the family, young Abraham. One of the fictional characters is counseled by Benjamin Franklin. Fiction, Phillip’s childhood friend is Marquis deLafayette, non-fiction: deLafayette’s role in United States and French military. The series is rife with this type of paradigm, but it is not difficult to determine what is true and what is fiction. All the instances that involve the Kents and John Jake’s other fictional characters are products of his imagination. Much of the rest is a fun methodology of conveying historical events.

The stories are very listenable. I found no need to re-wind or fast-forward; no segment boring or irrelevant. Theses books are not ‘love stories’ in the typical sense, albeit familial relationships, the crux of The Kent Family Chronicles, must include love stories, n'est-ce pas? In those areas where a sexual encounter is defined it is relevant to the plot and tastefully written. This does not occur often, but the clan does proliferate :-). A word to the prudish: there are a couple of rapes vividly described.

Very typical of the time written, the 1970s, writing is a bit verbose. Several of these books were adapted for television mini-series, popular at the time.

John Jakes is a terrific historical fiction author, recommended. Enjoy!

Great narration, great series, all books starting

with the " The Bastard" series, the narration was entertaining and the story line was historically informative.

A little graphic at the end.

It has been a great story with its tragic moments until the end of this book where it became a bit too graphic for my tastes. It made me feel better with the preview of the next book however to know the character survived.

Want more

This book ends leaving me wanting more. Guess that is the goal of a multi-volume Saga. A family facing adversity - mostly with resilience.

Love this series

This is my third time to listen t this series. I wish I could find others I like as much as this one! Don’t miss out!!

Excellent 2nd time around

2nd time around..loved it lo e the voice and the history of my newly adopted country

meh....decent.

wasn't a particularly grabby story line. if u like his books it's tolerable , I listen to many books twice or more over time,this won't be among those.

Too Dark

Would you try another book from John Jakes and/or Marc Vietor?

I like a book that balances good and evil and ultimately the good prevail. Jake's book
has just too much loss, suffering, pain, without victorious outcomes and moments. I love Jakes, but this one has put me off the series for now..

Adventure

Love John Jakes. Great stories. Marc Victor changes inflection as characters change. I feel like I am traveling with the Kent’s. Sorrow and adventure I really enjoy traveling the USA.

Not my favorite in the series

I'm a big Jakes fan so I finished it but this one was definitely not my favorite. I don't mind main characters getting killed off but this one was an all out massacre. The plot took so many different turns before settling on a theme that it left me underwhelmed by the final plot. I'll keep with the series but this is a low point for me.