The Bastard, The Rebels, and The Seekers are the first three novels in a series of eight connected books in American historical fiction that are replete with social concerns. In The Bastard, the unwed mother, Marie, is a Parisian actress, the father is an English nobleman, and Phillipe Charboneau is the bastard offspring. The mother's "evil" deed of bearing a child out of wedlock and her occupation preclude her acceptance into the church and society. This social concern recurs in The Rebels, when a character named Peggy gives birth to another bastard, Elizabeth, who is hidden in a foster home to prevent the mother's disgrace, and is brought back to the family only when the mother ultimately marries Phillipe, now known as Philip Kent. Elizabeth, upon maturity, desires to read a novel of seduction, which is vetoed by her stepfather, Philip, the original bastard.

She questions...