Review of Orphan Train

I took a peek at my local library's used book sale. Logically, I don't NEED any more books - my TBR pile is perilously high - but I don't NOT NEED more books (gotta love double negatives!). So I came home with Orphan Train, a historical novel released in 2013, but if you like it (and I predict that you will), author Christina Baker Kline has plenty of other novels for you to enjoy. Including one being released today: The Foursome, the reimagining of an astonishing true story: two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina—Kline’s own distant relatives—who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.

More about Orphan Train

Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship.

More about Christina Baker Kline

A #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including Orphan Train, The Exiles, Please Don’t Lie (co-authored with Anne Burt), and the forthcoming The Foursome (May 2026), Christina Baker Kline is published in more than 40 countries. Her novels have received the New England Prize for Fiction, the Maine Literary Award, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Award, among other prizes, and have been chosen by hundreds of communities, universities, and schools as “One Book, One Read” selections. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Kline was born in Cambridge, England, and raised there as well as in the American South and Maine. She is a graduate of Yale, Cambridge, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow in Fiction Writing. She has taught at Yale, NYU, UVA, Drew, and Fordham, where she served as Writer-in-Residence. The author or editor of five nonfiction books, she is a recipient of numerous Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and Writer-in-Residence Fellowships. A resident of New York City and Southwest Harbor, Maine, Kline is married to David Kline and has three sons: Hayden, Will, and Eli.

You can follow the author at:

Website: https://christinabakerkline.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bakerkline/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/bakerkline

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CBakerKline

Substack: Christina on the Margins

Thoughts about Orphan Train

Author Christina Baker Kline did an amazing job of bringing here characters to life. It's not simply what they say or do, she infuses them with memories, the things they notice about their surroundings, what brings them joy or fear or anger. I found myself swept into the lives of Molly and Vivian, marveling at the things they had in common, wondering how their lives would mirror, what decisions they would make to get them to Maine 2011. The story was so addictive that I finished it in two days of reading.

Just as I fell in love with Molly and Vivian, I was appalled by some other characters in their lives that were less than stellar. Kline did an excellent job of even making the less likable characters have some redeeming qualities so you were constantly reevaluating your opinion of them. Being a fan of historical fiction, I was more taken by Vivian's story (1920s to 1940s) than Molly's more recent life story.