Ri & Al - After David: The Falmer Boys Book III (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798245426327)

When Ri travels across the world to reunite with his first love Al, he carries only a suitcase, a tin of ashes, and a heart scarred by loss. In Brighton, he stayed to care for David-the man who held their small chosen family together-through the ravages of AIDS. In Melbourne, Al found the birth family he'd always longed for... and a way to outrun the grief he wasn't brave enough to face.

Reunited at last under the Australian sun, Ri and Al try to rebuild what distance, death, and silence have fractured. But love strained by absence is fragile, and neither man is who he once was. Ri is haunted by grief and exile-from home, from family, from faith. Al, bright and magnetic, is fighting the anxious fear that everyone he loves will eventually leave him. Their past mistakes collide in the present, forcing them to confront betrayal, longing, and the messy, unglamorous work of learning how to stay.

From the Great Ocean Road to the neon thrum of St Kilda, from family breakfasts to moments of devastating truth, this is a story of two young men learning to love each other in the aftermath of everything that tried to break them. When Ri's father dies, the fragile peace they've built trembles again-until a sunrise prayer, the pull of the tide, and the courage to choose each other offer a new kind of beginning.

Tender, raw, and deeply hopeful, A & Ri is a sweeping novel about grief, belonging, chosen family, and the extraordinary resilience of two hearts refusing to give up. It asks what it truly means to come home-and whether love can survive not just distance, but who we become along the way.