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Enlarge cover image for <mark class='oils_SH title proper'>The</mark> <mark class='oils_SH title proper'>exiles</mark> : a novel Book

The exiles : a novel

Summary: 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.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780062356345
  • ISBN: 0062356348
  • Physical Description: print
    371 pages : maps ; 24 cm
  • Edition: First edition.
  • Publisher: New York : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2020.
Subject:
Australia -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction
Exile (Punishment) -- Fiction
Women -- Australia -- Fiction
Female friendship -- Fiction
Penal colonies -- Australia -- Fiction
Governesses -- Fiction
Life change events -- Fiction
Midwives -- Fiction
FICTION -- Literary
FICTION -- Historical -- General
FICTION -- Cultural Heritage
Genre:
Historical fiction.
Historical fiction.

Available copies

  • 38 of 40 copies available at Westchester Library System.

Holds

  • 1 current hold with 40 total copies.

Other Formats and Editions

English (3)
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Ardsley Public Library FICTION KLINE (Text) 31000151255646 Fiction Available -
Bedford Free Library FIC KLI (Text) 31002150808755 Fiction Available -
Bedford Hills Free Library KLINE (Text) 31003151567291 Fiction Available -
Briarcliff Manor Public Library FICTION KLINE (Text) 31036150935978 Fiction Available -
Bronxville Public Library FICTION KLINE (Text) 31004151753600 Fiction Available -
Chappaqua Library FICTION KLINE (Text) 31005500427291 Fiction Available -
Croton Free Library FICTION/KLINE (Text) 31006151794310 Fiction Available -
Eastchester Public Library FICTION KLINE (Text) 31008152471492 Fiction Available -
Greenburgh Public Library KLINE (Text) 31009154761666 Fiction Available -
Harrison Public Library KLINE, C. (Text) 31010300228956 Curated Fiction Checked out 07/30/2025

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