Category: Reading Challenges

Book Review – A Far-Flung Life by M L Stedman

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About the Book

Outback Western Australia, 1958. For generations, the MacBrides have lived on a remote sheep station, Meredith Downs. A million arid acres, it’s an ocean of land, where the weather is a capricious god, and time still roams untamed.

One ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered.

Fate comes for them again, in a twist of consequences that will cause one of them to lose their life, and another to sacrifice theirs for the sake of an innocent child.

Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.

Format: Audiobook (13h 40m) Publisher: Transworld
Publication date: 5th March 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

At the heart of A Far-Flung Life is a series of random events and unintended consequences. A kangaroo crossing a road at night, a passenger in a car who wasn’t supposed to be there, a miraculous survival, a rainstorm forcing the need to find shelter.

It’s difficult to say more without revealing pivotal events in the book. What I can say is I found myself completely drawn into the story and the life-changing decisions some of the characters have to make, as well as the traumatic things they are forced to keep to themselves, not necessarily to protect themselves but others. Even more heartbreaking are the events that remain only as fragments of memory, the complete picture remaining tantalisingly out of reach until suddenly comprehension returns bringing anguish, guilt and shame should the truth be discovered. As it turns out, quite a few people become interested in unearthing the truth, each for different reasons.

The backdrop to all these events is the vast sheep station of Meredith Downs, farmed by the MacBride family for generations but, crucially, not owned by them, just leased from the government. This becomes significant later on in the book. It’s difficult to imagine the endurance needed to farm an area so huge travelling from one boundary of it to another can take days. A remoteness that means education must take place over the radio and medical attention relies on the Flying Doctor service. The landscape, although beautiful at times, can be a harsh environment in which to live.

‘Out here, it’s red earth for as far as the eye can see. Overhead, the sun ploughs an unending blue sky. Under dust-green mulga, a lizard seeks shade and shadow; ants engineer heat-defying nests; kangaroos suck moisture from tender leaves, ears swivelling to locate the distant rumble: on the straight vermilion line that cleaves the sparse trees…’

My favourite character was Pete Peachey, the roo shooter. I loved his gentle nature, his steadfastness, quiet wisdom and sense of justice. The author gradually reveals his fascinating but heartbreaking back story which I think could happily have made a novel in its own right.

I enjoyed every minute I spent with A Far-Flung Life. My only niggle was that the final, fairly short section of the book covered a long period of time in the characters’ lives so that one minute a character was a child and the next they had a family of their own.

In my review of the author’s previous bestselling book, The Light Between Oceans, I commented that the final chapter read like it was designed to provide a “Hollywood” ending. (It did in fact as it was made into a film in 2016.) A Far-Flung Life has a similarly emotional finale except this time the conclusion felt perfectly judged.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Lewis Fitz-Gerald.

In three words: Emotional, compelling, immersive.
Try something similar: O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

About the Author

M L Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. Her first novel, The Light Between Oceans, was a Sunday Times, New York Times and international bestseller and won the Goodreads Choice Best Historical Novel Award and the HWA Goldsboro Crown Debut. It was also longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin literary award and shortlisted as an Amazon Rising Star. In Australia, it won the Indie Best Debut and the Indie Best Book awards and was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the Literary Society Gold Medal. The Light Between Oceans has been published in around forty-five languages and has sold nearly five million copies worldwide. It was made into a Dreamworks film starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, produced by Heyday Films. A Far-flung Life is M L Stedman’s second novel, to be published worldwide.

Book Review – Thunderball by Ian Fleming #1961Club

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About the Book

James Bond is in disgrace. His monthly medical report is critical of the high-living that is ruining his health, and M packs him off for a fortnight in a nature-cure clinic to be tuned-up to his former pitch of exceptional fitness.

Furiously, Bond undergoes the shame of the carrot-juice and nut-cutlet regime – and thereby minutlely upsets the plans of S.P.E.C.T.R.E, a new adversary, more deadly, more ruthless even than Smersh.

What is S.P.E.C.T.R.E? What are its plans? Alas, the organisation is all too realistically described, its plans all too contemporary for comfort. This, the latest James Bond adventure, casts a long and terrible shadow.

Format: Hardcover (191 pages) Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Publication date: March 1961 Genre: Thriller

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My Review

Thunderball is the book I read for the #1961Club, the reading event hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings that ends today. It’s also one of the books on my second Classics Club list.

Thunderball is the ninth book in Ian Fleming’s spy thriller series starring James Bond. I only know James Bond from the film versions, expecially the classic ones starring Sean Connery, so I was surprised by how closely events in the book resemble the film. As I discovered, there’s a reason for this because the novel is based on an at the time unpublished screenplay that was a collaboration between Ian Fleming and four other people. When it was published under Ian Fleming’s name only a legal case followed.

Thunderball introduces Bond’s future arch-enemy Enrst Stavro Blofeld and his crime organisation S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). Blofeld runs S.P.E.C.T.R.E with ruthless fanaticism, despatching members who disappoint him in inventive ways. The book also sees the return of Bond’s friend Felix Leiter, seconded back into the CIA. This is where it can get confusing if you’ve only seen the films because Leiter is bearing the physical evidence of a deadly encounter in an earlier book.

The plot concerns the theft of two atomic bombs by S.P.E.C.T.R.E in a plan to extort a huge ransom from the UK and US governments or risk the bombs being detonated in unnamed locations. The location of the airplane which carried the bombs is unknown but Bond’s boss M has a hunch it might be the Bahamas. Bond’s not so sure but resigns himself to being posted there. After all, there are worse places to be sent. ‘He would get himself a good sunburn, and watch the show from the wings.’ It will come as no surprise that Bond finds himself not on the sidelines but in the thick of it.

The man in charge of S.P.E.C.T.R.E’s plan on the ground is Blofeld’s second-in-command Emilio Largo whose super-yacht, the Disco Volante, is the operation’s headquarters. Aboard the yacht is Largo’s girlfriend, Domino, with whom Bond – naturally – becomes involved. Unknown to Domino she has a connection to S.P.E.C.T.R.E.’s plan and, when she discovers it, she agrees to help Bond, with unpleasant consequences.

Thunderball was a lot of fun. Yes, some of it is dated but I actually found Bond less misogynistic than I expected. There’s actually a quite tender scene at the end. The plot cleverly feeds in to contemporary concerns about nuclear weapons and introduces some great villains. There are exciting underwater scenes, especially towards the end of the book.

You get the sense Fleming’s Bond possesses many of the characteristics of his creator. A heavy smoker, a connoisseur of cocktails, thoroughly at home at the gaming table and with a taste for fast cars.

In three words: Exciting, glamorous, suspensful

About the Author

Ian Fleming was born in 1908. Best known for his post-war James Bond series of spy novels, he came from a wealthy family. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing. He worked for Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, drawing from his wartime service and career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels. Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952. It was a success and eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously; other writers have since produced Bond novels. Fleming’s creation has appeared in film twenty-seven times, portrayed by six actors in the official film series.