This historical fiction book begins in 1840 in Tasmania when Mathinna, an Aboriginal child, was taken from her stepfather to live with the British Governor and his wife. About the same time, Evangeline, a young governess in London, was accused of stealing a ring that had been given to her by the adult son of her employer. Evangeline reacted to the accusation by pushing another servant down the stairs. So she was tried and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in Tasmania. She and several other women were loaded onto a former slave ship for the 4 month trip to Australia.

Evangeline was pregnant by the son who gave her the ring but he was on holiday when she was arrested and knew nothing about the pregnancy.

Evangeline made two friend on the journey but she also made an enemy of one of the sailors, a former ex convict. Soon after she gave birth onboard to a daughter, she was killed by that sailor. So Hazel, one of Evangeline’s friends, colluded with the ship’s doctor to have the child listed as her own before the trip arrived in Tasmania.

The story goes on to explain about conditions in women’s prisons in Australia and how it was possible to work outside the prison as well as earn an early release if the prisoner’s skills were in demand by local people.

The Governor’s wife’s efforts at turning Mathinna into a cultured child were successful as the girl learned to speak English and French fluently as well as subjects taught to other British children. However Mathinna soon found herself forgetting about her heritage and dead parents.

The author has done extensive research into British convicts’ transport to Australia and what life was like for them after they arrived from halfway across the globe. It seems that after the import of convicts ended in 1868, the Australian people worked to forget this sordid part of their national heritage. They are less willing to talk about the inhuman people treatment of the Aboriginal people as well. Today 20% of the Australian population are descendants of convicts from Britain. The Australian Aboriginals comprise 3.3% of the population today even though they were the only inhabitants of the Australian continent when the British arrived.

History buffs as well as those who are interested in learning about women’s struggles, will find this a good read. Anyone else looking for a good story will enjoy it as well.

I received this ARC from the publisher and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting premise, to be sure. I didn't know anything about any of the historical aspects of this book--the sending of English convicts to Tasmania in the mid 1800s and the forcible removal of Australian aborigines from their homes for the sake of civilizing them. Or, in the case of this book, keeping them as a fun trinket to show off, until the novelty wears off and then kicking them to the curb. Fascinating, cruel, and shockingly true. The problem is that it's almost too much hardship and brutality, like the author wanted to be sure the reader was sufficiently horrified. While I understand that Kline is telling us what happened historically, so many bad things happening to every character constantly made it feel mechanical and contrived somehow. It cheapened and degraded the storytelling feel that a novel like this needs. It felt manufactured and without any real heart.
I also couldn't believe the characters of this novel. They never became real enough for me to care about them. It feels too much like they are made up characters just to move the story along instead of allowing them to come to life and tell the story themselves.

Another wonderful historical fiction depiction from Kline about a relatively unknown part of history. The Tasmania of the 1840's & it's convict labor past was just hearsay to me. We'd heard Australia was where the UK sent its "convicts" but how they got there & for what crimes was an incredible story.

Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when she is accused of stealing a gift that was given to her by the son and also pushes a mail down the steps. She is discovered 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, 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. 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. Many of them have been relocated and 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. Christina Baker Kline tells of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from the perspective and experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. I almost finished this book in one day as I could not put it done as the the author's descriptions and obvious research kept me entranced.

I loved Orphan Train by the same author so jumped at the chance when it was offered as an ARC by the publisher on NetGalley.

Two interlocking narratives provide a gripping illustration of the horrors that accompanied the early history of Tasmania, as the native population was wiped out by British colonizers and women prisoners, often judged guilty on the flimsiest of pretexts, were shipped around the world and treated only marginally better than slaves. Kline is at her best here. I found it literally impossible to put this book down.

This book was a very interesting look at women who were transported to Australia from Great Britain. It also looked at the life a young aborigine girl who was "adopted" into a family. While the stories behind the convict women came to a conclusion, I felt that the young girl's story did not. I wish that had been fully fleshed out.

Christina Baker Kline’s THE EXILES is an engrossing and significant work of historical fiction. Upon a meticulously researched setting of female British convicts sent to Australia, Baker Kline tells the stories of three women who left few traces: Mathinna, an Aboriginal girl who is taken on a whim from her family and community to be cultivated by a British woman who fancies herself a scholar of indigenous cultures; Evangeline, an orphaned young English woman with neither financial means nor practical skills, impregnated by the stepson of the family for whom she serves as governess, and subsequently arrested for stealing a ring her gave her; and Scottish Hazel, the teenage daughter of a drunken midwife, convicted for stealing a silver spoon. Evangeline and Hazel’s fated friendship on the convict ship leads to Hazel’s eventual encounters and poignantly fleeting friendship with Mathinna in a manor home. It is in the novel’s moving and deeply satisfying epilogue that we finally see, one generation later, a confrontation of the injustice and cruelty to which Evangeline was subject that set her story in motion. With timely historical context on the treatment of convicts, granted no due process, no voice, and few means of recovering from the injustices visited upon them, this novel is a testament to the endurance and ingenuity of women in the face of inequality and systemic marginalization.

The Exiles is truly a work for these times, about the abuse of power and how the voices of the less powerful will not be ignored. Original, meticulously researched, and perfectly crafted. One of the best books I've read all year.

The Exiles is told from four points of view. Each one is a strong female character facing difficult hardships from a very young age. Mathinna is a native who is forced to leave her land at the whim of of the English Governor and his wife, hoping to save the "savage" by educating her. Evangeline is the daughter of a minister working as a governess. She falls for the son of her employer and is accused of murder. We meet Hazel on the Medea, the wooden ship Evangeline is also sailing on. The two are sentenced to prison time in Australia for their crimes. Lastly, we have Ruby, Evangeline's daughter who was born aboard the Medea. The author describes the circumstances in which the character finds themselves in with great care and depth. The reader begins to care about their events in their lives and empathize with their situation. Also, one learns about the treachery and injustices women in the 1840's lived through if they were accused of a crime, especially if they were poor and uneducated.

The Exiles
A Novel
by Christina Baker Kline
HarperCollins Publishers
You Like Them You Are Auto-Approved
Custom House
General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction

Great book for book clubs. Good story!
5 star

I love historical fiction, and this book is definitely a part of my love. Like Eileen said, there were times that it was too descriptive, but that did not take away from the overall message of the book. This may make my final list.

This book got off to a slow start and there was a jarring twist in the middle but all in all it was an amazing book. I learned a lot about the convict transports to Tasmania and the forced resettlement of the indigenous people. While the story of Hazel and Evangeline was heartbreaking I would have liked to know more about Mathinna. I really feel like possibly it was a metaphor for her whole life that she was basically forgotten about towards the end of the book. An informative and fascinating read.

Deep, rich characters and engrossing plot will take the reader on a wonderful adventure. Perfect for book clubs!

I WAS GRIPPED by these people. The wealth of detail on daily living was SO immersive,
and the extent of the author's research really came through without overwhelming the story.
The main characters were real, and sympathetic. A GREAT READ!!!
I can hardly wait to spread the word.

The novel takes place in 19th century Australia where Evangeline is seduced by her employer's son and promptly discarded when she discovers she's pregnant. She finds herself thrown in jail, where she meets Hazel, a skilled midwife whom she quickly befriends. Kline captures the beautiful story of friendship and courage and in her latest novel.

Evangeline Stowe, an innocent young English girl orphaned lately from her vicar father, educated but naive enters the employ of a dysfunctional family as a governess and is lured into love by the older son. Jealousy erupts from a maid in the house and she is wrongly accused of a crime. Convicted and pregnant, she's sentenced to be 'transported' to Australia and where she's to be confined for 14 years. Pregnant on a 4 month voyage tortured by horrible conditions and a sadistic ex-con sailor, her fates are changed by other women on the voyage and the ship's doctor. What happens to her, her baby and those who tried to help her sometimes to their own detriment makes for a dramatic journey for us all.

Mathinna is an Australian Aborigine who is snatched from her native land and all that she know to be 'civilized' by an English Lord and Lady. Treated like an object, a curiosity and a bother, she tries in vain to become someone else who might be accepted by her new 'family' yet her black skin makes her always an outsider. Intelligent and innocent she seems doomed to be a novelty and finds that even at her worst, she can't go home. She's no longer that 8 year old person who loved her people and her land.

These stories cross in an orphanage where a baby and a 9 year old child are confined at the same time.

Christina Baker Kline, author of another great book, A Piece of the World, writes with insight and truth.

A worthy read, with perhaps limited appeal due to it's historical placement.

This novel highlights that the mid-19th century was not kind to women. A naïve vicar’s daughter is seduced by a wealthy cad, falsely accused of several crimes, and goes from the infamous Newgate prison, to her sentence as a convict transported to Australia. An aboriginal orphan amuses the wife of an Australian governor, and is taken into their home. She’s dressed up and shown off until she no longer amuses them, then is sent away without another word. The convict women being transported suffer at the hands of some cruel people on their ship. There is quite a bit of cruelty in this story. So much death, lying, and unkindness made it hard to read at times--well-written but depressing. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I loved loved loved this book! A well written story of 1840’s Austrailia. It tells the stories of Evangeline, Mathinna and Hazel, all 3 having to deal with being women who were either wrongly accused or victims of their circumstances. I couldn’t put this book down. Ms. Baker has always been able to tell a compelling story about important times in history and I think this is one of her best.

I would recommend this book for anuone interested in Austrailian history of the prison system and for book groups.

This book is well-written and easy to get sucked into. I didn't feel as connected to the characters as I like to be when reading books, but they are interesting. Some of the story seemed jumpy and not as well developed to me, but overall, I enjoyed reading it.

Note: This book will be published September 15; I read an advance readers' edition.
Christina Baker Kline is a master of historical fiction and I love her books Orphan Train and A Piece of the World. The Exiles is an excellent book as well, well written and very clearly well researched. Set in the mid-1800s in Van Diemen’s Land, Australia (now known as the island of Tasmania), it details the lives of female prisoners shipped to the penal colony from England and a young aboriginal girl who is taken in by the new governor of the land. Evangeline and Hazel endure horrific conditions in the London prison they are sent to for their minor crimes and then a harrowing four month journey by ship to their new home across the world. Mathinna is the orphaned nine-year-old daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who is forcibly relocated and confused about how she fits into this new world. It was so interesting and heartbreaking to learn about this period of history.