• The Seekers

  • The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 3
  • By: John Jakes
  • Narrated by: Marc Vietor
  • Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (541 ratings)

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The Seekers  By  cover art

The Seekers

By: John Jakes
Narrated by: Marc Vietor
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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.

What listeners say about The Seekers

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Excellent 2nd time around

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

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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!

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good read

I am really enjoying the Kent Family series. The author weaves an intriguing story while sharing detailed American history.

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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.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

disappointed

expected more from the author...
I realize the importance of moving charectors forward, but death and rape, are not the only ways open to a writer.

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Bad

Every character is sexually menaced or actually sexually assaulted molested or raped. 2/3rds of the book is about rape incest or murder. Every John Jakes villain is the same.

Waaaay too much time in this book is dedicated to describing a ten year old's tits. This is garbage.

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    2 out of 5 stars

A little history and a lot of depraved sexual junk

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I enjoy historical fiction- I just get very tired of the incessant references to sexual deviancy- While every protagonist is a customer of the oldest profession- they are aghast that his/wife/mother sister might be raped or forced into the profession-
John Jakes is a master at telling the historical fiction tale- but he seems to fixate on sexual deviancy and the details of each depressing episode get old and -to my mind- unnecessary to the story lines- That and the continuous writing about the abuses of alcohol- make me feel that he could do so much better- There were people of character and not all were alcoholics in our nations development and maturation.-
People who have fallen into these oldest of traps might feel like these books are quality entertainment- I remain hopeful that the author will find something beautiful to include and protagonist that one can relate to and look up to. Maybe in book four...

Would you ever listen to anything by John Jakes again?

Yes- I do like the genre and the research that John Jakes - puts into his work- I just keep hoping that he might mature out of the need to write dark porn- and quit making all of of his main characters alcoholics

Which character – as performed by Marc Vietor – was your favorite?

I find them all to be lacking in moral fiber and there are no happy endings-

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Seekers?

I would cut the explicit details of the rape scenes and the sexual arousal details- it seems like it is just for the authors need to delve into darkness.

Any additional comments?

I realize that these are older novels just brought to the audible stage- but maybe they should have some sort of warning that the content is sexually explicit and borders on dark porn.-
It is too bad that the HF genre's major contributor is so fixated on dark and depressing details.-

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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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!!

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Empty spaces

There are very long delays between chapters causing you to think the book had paused.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Nothing Redeeming Here

Absolutely the most whiny and unlikeable male descendants of Phillip. Shame on Jakes for surrendering what could/should have been a marvelous continuation of the fantastic historical fictional saga of an American rags to riches family, to the cheap porn that pervaded fictional books of the 70s.

And damn him for the rape of a child.

This was NOT an enjoyable read.

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