Originally read 25/Jan/2012
Illustrates the perfection that spare writing can accomplish! Absolutely wonderful!

10/May/2014 (Re-read for the 2014 Re-Romancing Favorites Challenge) - I still loved the writing style as much as the first time...so much so that I dove right in to the next book in the series - same as on the first read! ( )

What a beautiful story! From the amazing setting in Australia to the wonderful main and supporting characters, the deep love between Jad and Luke, to Jad's journey of self-discovery, this book contains everything that makes a story worth reading and rereading for me. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and kept me spellbound throughout the drama unfolding across the pages. Whether you're looking for a romance with intense emotions, or a character's deeply moving realization of who he is and who he is supposed to be with, this book will give you both.

Jad Yindi, a half-Aboriginal boy with a simple background who loves the water, grows up with Luke as his best friend. Luke is from the outback, but loves going diving with Jad. They grow up together as best friends and as that friendship grow into love, they both discover their "pearl", the thing they want most. The real pearl Luke gives Jad as a reminder of who they are to each other takes on huge symbolic meaning when Jad starts to drift away from his life on the beaches, in search for – more. It almost broke my heart to watch him go off to Sydney because he wants to be a doctor. He is like a fish out of water there, but tries so hard to fit in. He loves Luke deeply, yet has this need to find himself, and with his Aboriginal roots fighting with his dreams of a future helping people he has a hard time figuring out which is more important.

Luke is much more straightforward. He knows who he is and what he wants, and goes after it without hesitation. He loves Jad to distraction and doesn't understand why his friend and lover feels this urge to run and look for – whatever he is looking for that Luke does not understand. Luke is deeply hurt because he is so sure of his love, but he is also willing to wait for Jad to figure himself out. He may be the man who stays behind, but in terms of their future and accepting their destiny, he is miles ahead of Jad. I can't even imagine the pain he goes through!

Through all the trials and tribulations of Luke almost dying, of Jad finding another man who tempts him into a new relationship, and of both young men coming back to each other again and again, the pearl Luke has given Jad when they were boys accompanies Jad as a symbol of his destiny. It became the symbol of my hope for a happy ending as well! And when the final twist hit, I was so far on the edge of my seat, I almost fell off. Wow!

If you like deeply emotional stories about soul mates who have a hard road to travel before they reach their happy end, if you enjoy reading about Aboriginal culture and how it may affect us in today's world, and if you're looking for a book about true love and all its consequences, then you will probably like this novel as much as I did.


NOTE: This book was provided by Wilde City Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.
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I knew in the first few pages that I was going to love this story. Luke and Jarrah meet as school boys and hit it off as friends immediately.

"I don't mind that you're half Aborigine, you know."
"That's good, 'cause I don't either."

It was a perfect story of best friends to lovers. A beautiful story. A perfectly beautiful story! ( )

This is a very short, very sweet, very romantic story. And despite being short it tells you 12 years of the life of Jad and Luke, who met in first grade and kissed at 18 years old.

On the classic path of the prince and the poor, Luke is the only son of a wealthy business man who lives in a mansion in the suburbs; Jad is the half white, half Aborigine son of a pear diver and a nurse. Luke apparently has everything, Jad has nothing, but that first day it’s Jad who shares his sandwich with Luke: the boy is orphaned by mother and his father doesn’t care much about him. In Jad Luke finds not only a friend but probably also the family he is missing.

Even if they are always together, at school and out of it, until 18 years old, they are only friends; no one of them thinks to search love outside their friendship, since their friendship is everything they need. Luke spends all his free time in the quest of the perfect pearl, something that symbolize his perfect love for Jad. When he finally finds it, then it’s the moment to declare his love to Jad, and for Jad to accept it.

But they are only 18 years old, Luke only dream was to find the pearl, and he reached it, Jad instead wants to become a doctor; the story doesn’t end like that, the author explains that this is only part of their life he has told, and more has to come.

If you are familiar with Geoffrey Knight’s works (also as A.J. Ryan) you will be probably surprised by this short story; it’s mostly sweet, not sad but neither light, it’s so full of love that I wondered if there is not something of truth in it, maybe some good remembrances of the author himself.