Christina Baker Kline – författare

‘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.

#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.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of the astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina — Kline’s own distant relatives — who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.When Eng and Chang Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they’re not just a curiosity—they’re a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they’re looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge.Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Adelaide sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sarah, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and epic: a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.

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.