If you’re like a lot of us, when you heard that Christina Baker Kline, author of bestselling historical novel The Orphan Train, was coming out with a new novel, you hopped on that holds list for The Exiles immediately. But now it’s going to be a long, long wait for your book! Not to worry, your friendly librarians are here to help. Below we’ve got five similar books that should help tide you over until your copy comes in.
If you don’t know what The Exiles is about, no problem! 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.
Click any of the readalike book covers below to be taken to our catalog, where you can request a copy of the book with your library card number and PIN. We’ve also included links to our e-media services Overdrive and Hoopla where available. You can find The Exiles on Overdrive here.
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg
A novel spanning decades, generations and America in the 1940s and today, centers around five women who worked in a Phillips 66 gas station during the WWII years.
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion Overdrive link
Love and Ruin by Paula McClain
The author of The Paris Wife returns to her fan-favorite subject, Ernest Hemingway, in a tale set on the eve of World War II that is inspired by his passionate, stormy marriage to a fiercely independent, ambitious young Martha Gellhorn, who would become one of the 20th century’s leading war correspondents.
Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough weaves a sweeping story of two sets of twins–all trained as nurses but each with her own ambitions–stepping into womanhood in 1920s and ’30s Australia. Because they are two sets of twins, the four Latimer sisters are as close as can be. Yet these vivacious young women each have their own dreams for themselves. They are famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit, and ambition, but as they step into womanhood, they are not enthusiastic about the limited prospects life holds for them. Together they decide to enroll in a training program for nurses–a new option for women of their time who have previously been largely limited to the role of wives, and preferably mothers.
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
A novel set in 1918 Dublin offers a three-day look at a maternity ward during the height of the Great Flu pandemic.
The Pull of the Stars Overdrive link
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
A tale inspired by firsthand accounts about the notoriously corrupt Tennessee Children’s Home Society follows the efforts of a Baltimore assistant D.A. to uncover her parents’ fateful secrets in the wake of a political attack and a chance encounter with a stranger.
Before We Were Yours Overdrive link
All plot summaries courtesy of Novelist.
Join us next week for another installment of the Virtual Book Club!
Read it or Weep 