Christina Baker Kline - Böcker

‘Graceful, moving and powerful . . . a wonderful story that seems to have been waiting, all this time, for Kline to come along and tell it’ MICHAEL CHABON To Christina Olson, the entire world is her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family has lived in for generations, and tied to the farm by health and circumstance, Christina seems destined for a small life. Instead, by chance she becomes the inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and eventually the subject of one of the best-known paintings of the twentieth century, Christina’s World.

Nearly 18 years old, Molly Ayer knows she just has one chance. Just months from `aging out' of the welfare system and close to being kicked out of her foster home. A community service position helping an elderly woman, Vivian Daly, clear out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie or worse. Vivian has led a quiet life on the coast of Maine, but in her attic, are the vestiges of a turbulent past. As Molly helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, she discovers they aren't as different as they seem.

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant historical novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives—two English convicts and an orphaned Aboriginal girl — in nineteenth-century Australia.Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

#1 New York Times Bestseller Available in a special hardcover edition, Christina Baker Kline's smash bestseller that is "a lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of American history" (Ann Packer). Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude? As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall.But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship. This hardcover edition of Orphan Train will feature a deckled edge.

London, 1840. Evangeline, pregnant and falsely accused of stealing, has languished in Newgate prison for months. Ahead now lies the journey to Australia on a prison ship. On board, Evangeline befriends Hazel, sentenced to seven years' transport for theft. Soon Hazel's path will cross with an orphaned indigenous girl. Mathinna is 'adopted' by the new governor of Tasmania where the family treat her more like a curiosity than a child. Amid hardships and cruelties, new life will take root in stolen soil, friendships will define lives, and some will find their place in a new society in the land beyond the seas.

'Christina's level of research into characters, place and time to tell a powerful story of suffering and survival in an historical fiction is masterful' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz'Gorgeous' Kristin Hannah, author of The NightingaleLondon, 1840. Evangeline has languished in Newgate prison for months, falsely accused of stealing her master's ring. Now beginning the long journey to Australia on a prison ship, she hopes for a new life for both her and her unborn child.On board she befriends Hazel, sentenced to seven years' transport for theft, whose own path will cross with an orphaned indigenous girl. The governor of Tasmania has 'adopted' Mathinna, but the family treat her more as a curiosity than a child.Amid hardships and cruelties, new life will take root in stolen soil and friendships will define lives, but only some will find their place on the other side of the world.'Master storyteller Christina Baker Kline is at her best in this epic tale of Australia's complex history-a vivid and rewarding feat of both empathy and imagination. I loved this book' Paula McLain, bestselling author of The Paris Wife