The Exiles

Description

Australia, 1840: A country into which England is rapidly pouring its prisoners, including an increasing number of women. With the indigenous population forcibly relocated, promised land of their own they will never receive, the growing population of former convicts is beginning to create a society in “the land beyond the seas.”

Against this backdrop master storyteller Christina Baker Kline brings us the intertwined stories of three unforgettable characters: a sheltered governess, seduced by her employer’s son, arrested on trumped-up charges and sentenced to seven years’ transport; the canny young thief, midwife and herbalist she befriends aboard the ship; and an orphaned indigenous girl, taken from her people and brought to live with the family of the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.

While life in Australia is punishing and often 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 friendship, and the unfettering of legacy.