Wilmont Kreis

Thank you to readers who have been sending questions regarding events in FEARFUL PASSAGE NORTH. Beginning next week I will be posting answers to them.  Read More 

The 100-plus surviving captives are leashed and driven though the waist-deep snow on a month-long march through the total wilderness of what is today the length of the state of Vermont. Along the way several of their numbers fall victim to the elements, the tomahawk or the knife. As the survivors are forced to march over their slain family members and neighbors left to feed the animals along the three-hundred mile trail to Montréal. Read More 

WHO WAS ANDREW STEVENS???
Making her way with the friendship of two local girls and the encouragement of an aging school teacher who has learned how to be a literate woman in this land of repression, Lizzie’s big breakthrough comes when she encounter a strange and exciting man. Two of his many qualities not shared or appreciated by the townspeople. Read More 

1704—Deerfield Massachusetts is the very end of the New England Frontier and home for 400 Puritans souls. If life is not difficult enough in this frozen wilderness, they are attacked by a mélange of Indian tribes organized by the French-Canadian Military. On that one night during the area’s worst winter in memory, the town is burned and half its inhabitants are killed or taken captive. Read More 

Fearless Passage North: Spring of 1696, Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Price is entering adolescence as her ne’er-do-well father is moving the family to Deerfield, Massachusetts—the end of the world in 17th century New England. Preferring outdoors to in and animal care to knitting, Lizzie is a square peg in the round hole of New England Puritanism. In contrast to her straight-laced older sister, Mary, Lizzie is constantly on the hunt for excitement. Unfortunately she is forced to search in the dullest place on earth. Read More 

1704, Deerfield Massachusetts—the limits of the American frontier. Seeking a normal adolescence, it is the chance meeting of a strange young man that puts excitement into Elizabeth (Lizzie) Price’s life leading to romance and a marriage not entirely embraced by her Puritan community.
During one of New England’s harshest winters, when she has just begun her wonderful new life, Lizzie and her community are violently wrenched into chaos when an army of Indians and their French military supporters burn the village and kill or capture half of its occupants. Led by leather lashes around their necks, the captives are marched for a month on a fearful passage north through the winter wilderness of Vermont to the relative metropolis of Montréal. In this totally foreign setting of French-Canadian Catholicism Lizzie is forced to find a new life.
Not only a journey through the frozen wild, but a journey through the cultures of Puritan New England, American Indian and French-Canadian Catholic—all so different, yet so hauntingly similar.
If you enjoyed the Allard Series and Kreis’ ability to bring history to life, you will love Fearful Passage North.  Read More 

Cold—all she knew was cold… The opening line of FEARFUL PASSAGE NORTH sounds a good deal like today in Port Huron. If you are unfortunate enough to be in the northeast today, go out your door and think of taking a 300 mile forced-walk through the wilderness. The book is being printed even as I blog and should be ready to order in about a week. Happily, most of you can then curl up by the fire to read. Read More 

For the past three years readers have asked, “When do we get another historical fiction novel? We loved the Allards!” Well, Allard fans, it’s coming. After 13 years of research, FEARFUL PASSAGE NORTH will soon be available. Seen through the eyes of a young woman who lived it, the story is centered around one of North America’s most devastating events in the setting of the era’s three cultures: New England Puritan, French-Canadian Catholic, and Native American—cultures so very different yet so similar. Stay tuned—more to come! Read More 

Just as life is good for the young Allards, a minor war begins in the Chicago area with the Indian chief, Blackhawk. A group of soldiers from the war travel through Detroit and with them comes Cholera. The subsequent epidemic kills many residents including Gabriel Richard and Louis-Pierre Allard leaving his 27 year-old widow with eight children to face the future in The Allards Book Six: The Medallion. Stay tuned! Read More 

Jacques Allard dies ice fishing in 1814 and Louis-Pierre finds work as hunting and fishing guide in the St. Clair Flats for the new wave of rich business men coming to the new city. In 1822 he marries his long term love, Therese Balard, and they began their own farm and family. As Cadillac’s City in the Wilderness continues to prosper, the young Allards prosper with eight children in ten years. Read More