When a former officer of Napoleon’s cavalry is targeted by Prussia’s secret police in 1836, he must face his own demons, evade the authorities and take his family across the ocean to carve out a new life on the untamed edge of America.
   1836: A Land Too Fabulous illuminates intricate family relationships amid the upheavals of war and slavery with intriguing glimpses of 19th Century Germany, Holland, Gibraltar, Cuba, a newly independent Republic of Texas, New Orleans when the city was almost entirely French, and northern Illinois when it was on the wild edge of the American frontier. 
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Why read 1836?
Whether you know anything about your ancestors or not, some brave souls among them probably risked everything to make a journey like this. Their story is probably like this one of leaving the Old World behind and building the New World from scratch, a story of wrenching loss, unforeseen dangers and narrow escapes, of weeks, months or even years on the road, and of very hard work and unprecedented opportunity.
     If it has been a generation or more since that fateful journey, you probably live in a world of health, wealth and possibility that would have been an impossible fantasy to your grands or great-grands or perhaps even your parents.  
     Their stories deserve to be our benchmark for risk-taking and bravery and determination and of the simple hard labor required to build a shockingly different and better nation for ourselves and for our families. 

​Does it seem strange that the title keeps changing? I hear you! 
The publication process for fiction is long, confusing and difficult -- see Pre-Pub News to follow the pathway 1836 is taking. Think of it as a cause you can espouse, and learn what you can do to help!