The slums of Eades Alley offers little to the lovely and almost always hungry sixteen year old Anne, so when she saw the sign "Girl Wanted", her hunger drove her in the door of that notorious place. With her father deadly ill and too many other children at home, Anne sets out to work at the Penny Pot Tavern near the riverfront in Philadelphia. The small scraps of food she is able to bring home often are more than her wages, so when the handsome gent who likes to show her little experiments in the tavern offers her a half crown sterling to go upstairs, the thoughts of how many meat pies it would buy has Anne eagerly following up behind him.

While they both enjoy these short visits up the stairs, the young Ben Franklin has already made a commitment to another. As he often touts, "I am monogamous, but not celibate". In 1723, he had lodged with the Read family and soon had a strong relationship going with their daughter Deborah. Then, a wonderful opportunity arose. Ben is being sent to London, but Deborah's mother would not allow the young lovers to marry. Would he ever come back for her?

From his humble start as a printer's apprentice to the top echelons of colonial America, Sally Cabot masterfully paints a very vivid and compelling look at the more private and personal side of this famous and multitalented statesman and inventor who became one of the founding fathers of the United States. While official biographies focus on and laud Franklin's many roles from publisher to negotiator and then to political leader, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S BASTARD takes you right into the heart of his life and presents a very human and fascinating portrayal not only of him as well as of the times. Reading it is really like seeing it directly from the eyes of the women he loves, from his friends, and most importantly from the perspective of his son, William Temple.

Based soundly on her extensive and meticulous research and covering a time period critical to American history from 1723 to 1777, Sally Cabot (aka Sally Gunning) sets out a highly credible fictional account to respond to questions, such as why Ben's common-law wife would accept his bastard child in their home, why the name of William's mother became such a guarded secret, and why Ben and his son end up with such divided loyalties. While we may never truly know the answers to these long lingering questions, Cabot, as a literary mid-wife, very successfully delivers truly human historical characters that are so alive and vital, both in their physical descriptions as well as in their psychological motivations, you just have to keep turning the pages to find out what happens to all. This is truly a compelling and fascinating book that an historical fiction fan would not want to miss!