Rich cast of characters populate sweeping Australian family saga

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This article was published 28/03/2026 (216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The life we plan can change in a moment, leaving consequences we could never have imagined.

That’s the lesson the MacBride family learns in this sweeping family saga set on a remote sheep station in 1958 Australia.

Author M.L. Stedman debuted with her 2012 novel The Light Between Oceans, a story of love and redemption set in post-First World War Australia.

She returns to historical fiction — and many of the same themes — with her beautifully written second novel about a shattered family on a remote sheep station in Western Australia.

Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia, which comes through in her vivid depictions of the region and tenderly created characters.

Readers of a certain age will be reminded of another Australian family saga set on a sheep station — Colleen McCullough’s classic 1977 novel The Thorn Birds (made into the wildly popular 1983 miniseries of the same name).

Stedman explores many of the same themes as McCullough, including guilt, secrecy, sacrifice and family. (Readers hoping for forbidden romance between a handsome priest and an impulsive young woman, however, will be disappointed.)

Stedman opens her story on a lonely road on Meredith Downs, the million-acre sheep station operated by the MacBride family.

While family patriarch Phil and oldest son Warren chat business, youngest son Matthew dozes and plans his life after high school:

“And right this minute, two days short of his eighteenth birthday, it felt like (Matthew) could do anything at all: go to university, become an engineer or a scientist — or a cartographer — he loved a good map…”

Suddenly, Phil swerves to avoid a kangaroo, killing himself and Warren and leaving Matthew fighting for his life.

Matthew’s guilt-ridden sister Rose and stoic mother Lorna devote all their time to Matthew’s recovery, until a strange twist of consequences leads to another family tragedy.

Instead of chasing his dreams, now Matthew is left to lead the family and station while coping with the secrets exposed in the aftermath.

Stedman narrates in the third person, rotating viewpoints between multiple characters.

Her story boasts perfect pacing combined with beautiful prose and an occasional plot twist — some of them a little unbelievable.

Though Stedman brings in a sizable cast of characters, all are richly developed and sympathetic, even when unlikable.

In a Jane Austen-like manner, Stedman hyper-focuses on the setting of Meredith Downs and the local community, ignoring world events unless they directly affect her characters.

For example, Steadman touches, but only briefly, on the effects of colonization and the erasure of the Australian Indigenous populations, with Matthew noting: “When the English arrived, the… land, though not marked by man-made borders, was intricately bounded by law and custom and tradition, described in hundreds of complex unwritten languages by people belonging to highly evolved groupings with connections to specific areas.”

While this technique immerses the reader in the world she creates, readers may feel it’s missing something.

Otherwise, it’s a heartwarming story to usher in spring.

Kathryne Cardwell is a writer in Treaty One Territory.