War & Love

Dance of Nations · Arc One · 1805 — 1815

A Historical Fiction Epic Jason K. Robar

Meet the Four For Producers & Agents

Ballrooms & battlefields. The world as it was, & the world that's coming.

Begin
A Queen who was loved by all. A soldier who did not know what he loved. A Prince who loved too much. And a girl who swore she would never love at all.
The Dance of Nations has begun With Iron Oaths in Midnight Tombs And Harvest Blood from Iron Hearts From Ash and Embers, Iron Spirit The Dead Ride Fast, the Dying Slow When Sleeping Swords at Last Shall Wake The Dance of Nations will be done.

Arc I · Dance of Nations · 1805–1815

The Four

Each carried a different wound. Each called it something else.

Ferdinand von Schill — Lieutenant of Prussia

Lieutenant of Prussia · Queen's Dragoons

Ferdinand von Schill

A soldier who did not know what he loved.

Portrait · Philippine

Noblewoman · Brunswick · 17

Philippine von Griesheim

A girl who swore she would never love at all.

Queen Louise of Prussia

Queen of Prussia · The Queen of Hearts

Queen Louise

A Queen who was loved by all — and unknown to herself what she could be besides.

Portrait · Prince Louis Ferdinand

Prince of Prussia · The Prussian Apollo

Prince Louis Ferdinand

A Prince who loved too much.

The Untold Audience

44million

Americans of German ancestry — the largest single ethnic group in the United States.

From Texas to the Great Lakes, German blood blankets the American Midwest. They built its breweries, its railroads, its small-town main streets — and then, twice, they buried their own names to survive two wars against the country that made them.

Their multi-generational story has never been told at scale. War and Love is that story.

2018 American Community Survey · U.S. Census Bureau

German Population in the United States, Ninth Census 1872
Ninth Census · 1872 · J. Bien, Lith. "German Population"

The Bridge Between Worlds

The Stephani Crossing

A three-masted barque. Forty-five days of saltwater and silence. The narrator who carries Arc One into Arc Two — and an entire generation across an ocean.

The German-American Odyssey: From Prussia to the American Midwest
Frankenstein, Prussia Bremerhaven North Atlantic New York Detroit

"The Voyage — ships like the Stefani could take 30 to 60 days to make the crossing."

Iron Oaths in Midnight Tombs — book cover

Arc I · Book One · Dance of Nations

Iron Oaths
in Midnight Tombs

a novel by Jason K. Robar

"Three Emperors in love with Glory. One King in love with Peace. And a Queen who was loved by all."

Prussia, November 1805. While Napoleon's armies crush Austria at Austerlitz, the Prussian court holds its breath in the ballrooms of Berlin. A King's caution. A Queen's grief. A young lieutenant who has not yet learned the cost of his oath. And a teenage girl in a candlelit corner, watching the music turn to drums.

Read the Opening Notify Me at Launch
Format
Novel · 480 pp.
Setting
Berlin · Jena · Tilsit
Years
1805 – 1806
Status
Manuscript Complete

A Five-Generation Saga

One Family. One Hundred and Forty Years.

From the candlelit ballrooms of Napoleonic Prussia to the ice floes of the Russian Arctic — a single thread of blood pulled across two continents and four wars.

I
1805 — 1815 · Prussia

Dance of Nations

  1. 1Iron Oaths in Midnight Tombs1805 – 1806
  2. 2Harvest of Iron Hearts1806 – 1807
  3. 3Flames of Iron Spirits1808 – 1809
  4. 4The Dead Ride Fast, the Dying Slow1812
  5. 5When Sleeping Swords Awake1813 – 1815
Berlin · Jena · Tilsit · Moscow
⚓
1851 · The Atlantic

The Stephani Crossing

A three-masted barque under moonlit waves. Forty-five days between worlds.

Bremerhaven → New York → Detroit
II
1851 — 1870 · Frontier

Iron Harvest

A prairie horizon. An immigrant family. The distant glow of a forge fire.

Michigan · Wisconsin · the Great Lakes
III
1862 — 1866 · The Civil War

Shoes on the Levee

A dirt road. A pair of worn boots. A lake shore that means home.

Alabama → Detroit · 900 miles · on foot
IV
1914 — 1918 · The Great War

The Silent Generation

A storefront window darkening. A surname rewritten. Sons sent to fight cousins.

Detroit · the Western Front
V
1919 · The Arctic

The Return

Ice floes. A tall ship breaking pack. A man turning, finally, homeward.

Arkhangelsk · the White Sea · Detroit

For Producers & Literary Agents

The Next
Prestige Epic

44 million Americans carry German ancestry — the largest ethnic group in the United States. They built its breweries, its railroads, its military resolve. Their story has never been told in major media. Not at scale. Not with the sweep and intimacy it deserves.

War and Love is a multi-generational saga of one family across one hundred and forty years — from Napoleonic Prussia to the shores of America and back to the battlefields of two World Wars.

Comparable Titles

Streaming · Premium

Royal Court Drama

Intimate access to power under historical pressure.

Network · Cultural

Multi-Generational Saga

A family across a century of national becoming.

Premium Cable · Military

Brotherhood Under Fire

Prestige war drama, sacrifice and small unities.

Streaming · Romance

Sweeping Historical Romance

Period love story tied to a continent's pulse.

The complete series bible, arc breakdowns, character profiles, and the Book One manuscript are available on request.

Request the Series Bible Download One-Pager

Series Architecture

  • I

    Dance of Nations

    1805–1815 · 5 Seasons

    Napoleonic Prussia. Ballrooms and battlefields. The mystery-box narrator on the Stephani.

  • ⚓

    The Stephani Crossing

    1851 · The Bridge Between Worlds

    The ship that carries Arc 1's voice and Arc 2's cast to America. The great reveal.

  • II

    Iron Harvest

    1851–1870 · The American Frontier

    German America built from scratch. Milwaukee's beer revolution. The forge, the prairie, the new tongue.

  • III

    Shoes on the Levee

    1862–1866 · Civil War & Midwest

    "Shoes" Rasch walks 900 miles from Alabama to Detroit, for love and the Union.

  • IV

    The Silent Generation

    1914–1918 · WWI Home Front

    German Americans erase themselves to survive. Sons fight cousins on the Western Front.

  • V

    The Return

    1919 · Arkhangelsk · The Polar Bear Expedition

    A Rasch freezes in the Russian Arctic — 107 years after his ancestor did the same.

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