Overview

"OPTIONED FOR TELEVISION BY BRUNA PAPANDREA, THE PRODUCER OF HBO'S BIG LITTLE LIES ""A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise ... Kline takes full advantage of fiction -- its freedom to create compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds. -- Houston Chronicle The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women's lives 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."

Full Product Details

9781799950745

Table of Contents

Reviews

Kline deftly balances tragedy and pathos, making happy endings hard-earned and satisfying...Book groups will find much to discuss, such as the uses of education, both formal and informal, in this moving work. -- Booklist Filled with surprising twists, empathetic prose, and revealing historical details. -- Publishers Weekly Caroline Lee offers an outstanding narration of Kline's well-researched novel...Lee captures the child's painful adjustments, the emotional essence of the women's growing friendships, and the inherent racism of the British overlords. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award. -- AudioFile Both uplifting and heartbreaking, this beautifully written novel doesn't flinch from the ugliness of the penal system but celebrates the courage and resilience of both the first peoples and the settlers who came after. -- Library Journal (starred review) A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise...[with] compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds. -- Houston Chronicle

A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise...[with] compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds. -- Houston Chronicle Both uplifting and heartbreaking, this beautifully written novel doesn't flinch from the ugliness of the penal system but celebrates the courage and resilience of both the first peoples and the settlers who came after. -- Library Journal (starred review) Caroline Lee offers an outstanding narration of Kline's well-researched novel...Lee captures the child's painful adjustments, the emotional essence of the women's growing friendships, and the inherent racism of the British overlords. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award. -- AudioFile Filled with surprising twists, empathetic prose, and revealing historical details. -- Publishers Weekly Kline deftly balances tragedy and pathos, making happy endings hard-earned and satisfying...Book groups will find much to discuss, such as the uses of education, both formal and informal, in this moving work. -- Booklist

Author Information

Christina Baker Kline was born in Cambridge, England, and was raised there and in the American South and Maine. She is the author of five novels, the coeditor of About Face: Women Write about What They See When They Look in the Mirror, and the coauthor of The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism. Kline lives with her husband and three sons in Montclair, New Jersey. Caroline Lee is an accomplished actor with numerous theater, film, and TV credits.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available