1836

Year of Escape

Rose Osterman Kleidon

If you liked Patrick O’Brian’s epic Aubrey/Maturin series, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, or Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, you’ll love 1836.

Europe, beautiful and cultured, is roiling in post-Napoleonic chaos…

…the only way out is to cross a dangerous ocean.

Can this desperate family reach the shores of America?

In 1836, Europe is still haunted by the Napoleonic Wars, and battle-weary veterans get the worst of it. Reactionary rulers everywhere try to snuff out the very idea of freedom...and those who treasure it.

One man, Niklas Kästner, knows they must go. But he and his mercurial Katrina must somehow make the journey safe for all of the family, including the children. To reach the sea. To find a ship. To survive the voyage.

This is the story of the author’s immigrant ancestors, like those of millions of Americans, and the chances they took, the lives at stake.

Read it now.

“1836: Year of Escape pulls off a literary magic trick, weaving the sweeping movements of history around the gripping account of a single family’s desperate emigration to America.” —Pete Beatty, author of Cuyahoga

“The tightly packed narrative unfolds like leaves on a family tree... The author creates a world that feels as if the reader walks as a witness to a real family's journey.” —Nancy E. Turner, NYT Bestselling Author, These Is My Words

“Engrossing story, glowing prose, stunning imagery.” —Steve Vogel, NYT Bestselling Author, Reasonable Doubt

Rose Kleidon, professor emeritus, might tell you she began writing 1836 as a child listening to tales of larger-than-life ancestors. What she discovered on her own led to the Immigrant Chronicles, an extraordinary account of 19th century immigration – dangerous, difficult, and thrilling journeys in the era before steamships and railroads.

A writer of historical fiction, short stories, poetry, and textbooks, Kleidon speaks at writers’ conferences and participates in historical writers’ associations. Her work won a WOW short story prize and has appeared in Haiku Journal and on vocal.media. She is the co-founder of a marketing communications firm, a sailor, gardener, weaver, grandmother, and storyteller exploring the intersection of history and fiction.

Her website, www.rosekleidon.com, reports on her writing and research into German immigration, children’s welfare, human rights, heritage plants and animals, and other aspects of pre-modern life. Book club discussion questions, reading suggestions, and recipes reside there, too.