A Far-flung Life

 

A Far-flung Life by M. L. Stedman

Fiction

2026

Finished on December 27, 2025

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Release Date: March 3, 2026

Publisher's Blurb:

From the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Light Between Oceans comes a breathtaking and epic novel set in the vast outback of Australia about tragedy, family secrets, and the enduring power of love.

When we do something that can't be undone or mended, how do we go on living? How do we find our North Star when there is no right answer? These are the questions at the center of M. L. Stedman's unforgettable and magisterial new novel A Far-flung Life, a sweeping and epic story of a family, a tragedy, and the aftermath that reverberates for decades.

Remote Western Australia, 1958: here, for generations, the MacBrides have lived on a vast sheep station, Meredith Downs. It is a million acres, an ocean of arid land. On an ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride serves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered. And then, tragedy revisits when a twist of consequences claims the life of one sibling and leads another to give up everything for the sake of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, is blunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide. The secrets at the heart of this gutting and beautiful story force him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.

A Far-flung Life is a tale about family and belonging, fate and time. It is about people trying to do their best and each, for private reasons, seeking shelter from the storm of life. Can a fleeting moment unravel a whole life, mar it indelibly and irrevocably? Can compassion, resilience, and forgiveness allow us to come to terms with our human imperfections? These are the questions Stedman asks in her profoundly moving, uplifting, and luminous new novel about what the heart can endure for the sake of love.

It's been thirteen years since The Light Between Oceans was published. I received an ARC of that debut novel and gave it a perfect 5-star rating. To say that I loved it is an understatement. 

And thus, I was thrilled to receive an ARC of M. L. Stedman's new novel, and as soon as I wrapped up my Elizabeth Strout marathon, I dove right in to A Far-flung Life. I couldn't have loved it more. What a remarkable story. It's one of loss, grief, love, and dark secrets. The characters are strongly defined and I ached for the MacBride family who had more than their share of heartaches. Stedman's setting is vivid, the heat and dust practically jumping off the pages.

It's hard country, out this way. Back in England, a farm might support two or three sheep per acre. Here, with the lack of rainfall, you need more like forty acres per sheep. There is heat. There is sun. But on winter nights the water in the tanks will freeze over. The searing light that coaxes life into being here will bleach it out of existence with the same indifferent shrug, leaving blanched trees, and rusted corrugated iron on the roofs of abandoned homesteads. The wind that brings the rain can bring floods and flatten shearing sheds. Everything that can do you good can also do you harm here--that's just the way of it.

This land has seen improbable things: the evolution of marsupials and monotremes; of flightless birds and animals that fly. It's seen continents split and islands arise. It's seen oceans turn to desert and desert turn to glaciers. And it's watched people drag their little lives across its surface, flat and unforgiving. 

and

In the homestead at Meredith Downs, silence is a canvas on which each sound trails like a color. The wind; a single fly; the clatter of a pan; the distant barking of a kelpie; the banging of a flywire door. There is no continuous murmur of traffic. No vague stream of voices. Each sound emerges for its solo, then fades into stillness, into a silence so complete it makes music of your heartbeat in your ears.

A Far-flung Life is a compulsively readable literary work, and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. It will likely be a book club favorite, and it will linger in my mind for years to come. I am so pleased to have finished out the year with a 5-star read, and look forward to re-reading this beautiful gem. It's a keeper.

Highly recommend!

I received a complimentary copy from Goodreads. All thoughts and opinions are my own.