Monday, 2 June 2025 Books+Publishing @booksandpublishing
Penguin Random House (PRH) Australia fiction publisher Beverley Cousins has acquired ANZ rights to A Far-flung Life by ML Stedman (The Light Between Oceans). The novel will be published simultaneously with Doubleday in the UK.
A Far-flung Life is set in outback Western Australia and follows the MacBride family. ‘A truck rumbles along a lonely outback road. A moment’s inattention, and in a few muddled seconds, the lives of the MacBride family are shattered,’ said the publisher. ‘But instead of leaving them to heal, fate comes back for them 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.’
ML Stedman is the author of The Light Between Oceans which won two ABIA Awards, the 2013 Indie Book of the Year, and the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award. It was published in 45 languages and was adapted into a film of the same name with Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander.
Cousins said: ‘Ten years in the writing, A Far-flung Life offers a truly immersive experience, transporting the reader to a sprawling sheep property in Western Australia and into the lives of the MacBride family. As with her debut, The Light Between Oceans, Stedman has written an unforgettable epic novel that is destined to be a global bestseller and an Australian classic.’
Stedman said: ‘The wonderful Beverley Cousins and the whole team at PRH ANZ did such a brilliant job of publishing The Light Between Oceans, so I feel incredibly fortunate that they’ll be bringing A Far-flung Life to Australian and New Zealand readers.’
PRH plans to release A Far-flung Life in 2026.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions