historical fiction – Page 3 – What Cathy Read Next…

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.

The shortlist for the The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026 was announced on 16th April 2026. Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors, their publishers and everyone associated with the books.

I always set myself the challenge of trying to predict which of the longlisted books will make the shortlist and I’m pleased to say I got four of the five correct this time around. There’s only one book I haven’t yet read – Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert – but it’s now firmly at the top of my TBR pile.

Here are the five books on the shortlist. Links from the titles will take you to my full review or the book description on Goodreads.

The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury) – This is a book for those who like their historical fiction full of detail about events, people and places. What the author does exceptionally well is to marry that historical authenticity with storytelling that is full of wit and humanity. I loved the colourful characters, the idiosyncratic mix of archaic and modern day language, and the book’s main character, John aka ‘The Pretender’. [Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026]

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury) – The book depicts a dark period in European history when unimaginably evil things were done by the Nazi regime. The author has found an imaginative way of telling this story and in its narrator, Adelheid, created a memorable and captivating character.

Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Polygon) – Based on the true story of a gruesome triple murder carried out in July 1857 on a small island in the Outer Hebrides, the book explores notions of hereditary insanity and attitudes towards mental illness prevalent at the time but with moments of absurdity and dark humour.

Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert (Virago) – The book is set in northern Germany in 1945 in a workers’ camp recently been liberated by the British which has become a camp for displaced persons. The men, women, and even children, have suffered appalling deprivation. Now, helped by a British Red Cross officer, they must come to terms with what has happened to them as they face an uncertain future. But the camp is just outside a small German town, and the townspeople too are rapidly adjusting to the reality of their defeat. In different ways, they must detach themselves from the Nazi state of mind and begin to take in the horror of what their country has done.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking) – Haunting, timeless and atmospheric, the book is the story of twenty-year-old Thomas who works as a shanker scraping for shrimps along the North West coast of England, in the same way his grandfather did before him. Hemmed in by his circumstances, he is suddenly given a glimpse of a very different possible future. [Winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026]

Did any of your favourites make the shortlist? Want to venture a winner?