Showing results by author "Christina Baker Kline" in All Categories

Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to "aging out" out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse.... As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early 19th-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.

To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family's remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than 20 years, she was host to and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the 20th century.

Molly Ayer has been in foster care since she was eight years old. Most of the time, Molly knows it's her attitude that's the problem, but after being shipped from one family to another, she's had her fair share of adults treating her like an inconvenience. So when Molly's forced to help an elderly woman clean out her attic for community service, Molly is wary. Just another adult to treat her like a troublemaker.

Angela can feel the clock ticking. She is single in New York City, stuck in a job she doesn't want and a life that seems to have somehow just happened. She inherited a flair for Italian cooking from her grandmother, but she never seems to have the time for it - these days, her oven holds only sweaters. Tacked to her office bulletin board is a photo from a magazine of a tidy cottage on the coast of Maine - a charming reminder of a life that could be hers if she could only muster the courage to go after it.

It was an accident. It was dark, it was raining, Alison had only had two drinks. And the other car ran the stop sign. But Alison finds herself trapped under the crushing weight of grief and guilt, feeling increasingly estranged from her husband, Charlie, who has his own burdens. He's in a job he doesn't love so that Alison can stay at home with the kids (and why isn't she more grateful for that?); he has a house in the suburbs and a long commute to and from the city.

Cassie Simon is a struggling artist living in New York City. When she receives a call from a magistrate telling her she has inherited 60 acres of land in Sweetwater, Tennessee, from her grandfather, whom she never knew, she takes it as a sign: it's time for a change. She moves to the small Southern town where her mother, Ellen, grew up - and where she died tragically when Cassie was three.

Once happily married with a young son, Jess takes to the road to escape her failed relationship and the disappointment of losing touch with her son. Four years into a nomadic existence, she has learned the hacks of van life and promotes a fantasy version of it on Instagram that bears little resemblance to her eclectic community of fellow travelers. But it’s that camaraderie, and the vastness of the great outdoors, that gives Jess the space she needs to find out what really matters to her. And act on it.

Entre 1854 y 1929, los llamados trenes de huérfanos partieron regularmente de las ciudades de la Costa Este de Estados Unidos hacia las tierras de labranza del Medio Oeste, llevando miles de niños abandonados cuyos destinos quedarían determinados por la fortuna o el azar. ¿Serían adoptados por una familia amable y afectuosa, o se enfrentarían a una adolescencia de trabajo duro y servidumbre?

New York, 1929: Mit neun Jahren verliert Vivian Daly, Tochter irischer Einwanderer, bei einem Wohnungsbrand ihre gesamte Familie. Gemeinsam mit anderen Waisenkindern wird sie kurzerhand in einen Zug verfrachtet und in den Mittleren Westen geschickt, wo die Kinder auf dem Land ein neues Zuhause finden sollen. Doch nur die wenigsten erwartet ein liebevolles Heim. Stattdessen müssen sie als billige Landarbeiter, Haushaltshilfen oder Näherinnen harte Knochenarbeit leisten.