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Home / Series / The Kent Family Chronicles

Series

The Kent Family Chronicles

The Kent Family Chronicles trace successive generations of one family from the eve of the American Revolution to the early 1890s. The saga begins with Phillipe Charboneau, the unrecognised son of an English duke, who becomes Philip Kent in America, and follows his descendants as they build, lose and attempt to restore a family dynasty.

The eight novels move through revolution, frontier settlement, the War of 1812, the Alamo, the California Gold Rush, slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, railroad expansion and the Gilded Age. Jakes places fictional family conflicts beside major public events to examine inheritance, ambition, national identity and the human costs of American expansion.

Reading order

Books in this series (8 books)

The Bastard cover

#1 – The Bastard

John Jakes

Phillipe Charboneau grows up in France as the unrecognised son of the Duke of Kentland. After his father’s death, the legitimate Kentland family denies his claim and forces him into a struggle that carries him through London and into contact with political radicals and American colonists.…

The Rebels cover

#2 – The Rebels

John Jakes

Philip Kent commits himself to the revolutionary cause and joins the Continental forces as conflict spreads from Massachusetts into a full war for independence. At Bunker Hill and in later campaigns, he confronts the difference between political conviction and the confusion, hunger and violence of military…

The Seekers cover

#3 – The Seekers

John Jakes

Abraham Kent returns from frontier fighting unable to accept the secure Boston life expected of Philip Kent’s son. Determined to establish an identity outside the family business, he and his young wife join settlers moving west, where land promises independence but exposes them to isolation, violence…

The Furies cover

#4 – The Furies

John Jakes

More than two decades after The Seekers, Amanda Kent emerges from the destruction surrounding the Alamo and refuses to remain a passive survivor. The daughter of Gilbert Kent, she is determined to recover the family name and wealth, even when that ambition requires her to cross…

The Titans cover

#5 – The Titans

John Jakes

Louis Kent controls the family fortune but lacks the judgement or loyalty needed to preserve it. His cousin Jephtha supports abolition, while members of the younger generation are tied to the South, making the national argument over slavery an internal family crisis before the first shots…

The Warriors cover

#6 – The Warriors

John Jakes

The Civil War reaches its final campaigns while the divided Kent family continues its private struggle over wealth, loyalty and control. Soldiers return wounded or morally compromised, and Jeremiah Kent becomes vulnerable to manipulation, desire and violence at a moment when the dynasty can no longer…

The Lawless cover

#7 – The Lawless

John Jakes

With the Civil War over, Gideon Kent attempts to honour his father’s promise to reunite a family scattered by death, estrangement and competing claims to the dynasty. Bringing his father’s widow back into the household reopens old conflicts and creates new dangers for relatives who hoped…

The Americans cover

#8 – The Americans

John Jakes

In the final volume, Gideon Kent’s failing health leaves the future of the family uncertain and its once-formidable dynasty in ruins. Young Will inherits the task of reconnecting relatives whose lives now extend from eastern cities and tenements to western ranches and new commercial enterprises. The…