Can true love be found immersed in an aquarium somewhere on the Nullarbor Plain?
In this magical realism romp, impulsive, budding artist, Pearl, jumps on a bus headed for the driest place she knows, Australia’s Nullarbor Plain, to escape a terrifying undersea curse, only to find it waiting for her in a fish tank when she arrives.
In her Aunty’s derelict roadhouse, she amuses and outrages the local misfits by seeing their hidden traumas in watery visions – which she paints.
Eddie, a hot, young windmill repairer, shows romantic interest, but soon must vie for this amazing artist’s attention with intense Italian cave diver, Massimo.
Tempting as these intimate offers may be, Pearl can’t go there, not while this family-seeing curse is ruining her life . . . unless it’s a gift? Just in case it is, Pearl risks her life in this magical realistic adventure to solve the mystery that has plagued all the women in her line, starting with her long-dead Great-Grandma Pearl.
Check out the book trailer (based on an earlier concept set in the Pilbara region of Western Australia).
Buy the book or eBook and we’ll send you a link to a private viewing of the short film on YouTube!
Sample
from Chapter 2
Pearl wakes exhausted at dawn and rubs her face as the bus pulls over, its gears grinding down.
A blinking push bike light lumbers past with lumpy brown saddle bags, ridden by a Japanese cyclist. He pauses to take in the wide main street’s ghost town buildings. He pulls over, longingly eyes the headlights of the bus as he removes his helmet, squirts water from his bottle over his face, and turns to gape at the wide main street’s ghost town buildings.
Pearl blinks, wondering if she’s still dreaming. Nobody sane attempts to ride a pushbike across the scorching Nullarbor desert in summer, but this little
Japanese cyclist looks ready to die trying.
The middle-aged bus driver, Clarrie, announces into his microphone, “Coolgardie. Oldest mining town in the West.”
Below Pearl’s window, a huge windmill blade is disappearing into one of the bus’s open luggage compartments. The lid is slammed shut, offering Pearl her first glimpse of a well-built, blonde hunk, who just stashed the windmill blade in the hold.
Surely not. She blinks to make absolutely sure that he is actually getting on her bus full of transport discounted retirees, except for herself of course. As the hunk straightens, his shoulder muscles ripple beneath his tight blue t-shirt, above the promise of perfect pecs. His slim hips, accentuated by tight jeans with a big belt buckle over a flat stomach, have Pearl inwardly wolf whistling.
And then she sees it: in her reflection in the window, her frizzy brown hair has piled up alarmingly high on the side of the window from sleeping against it, like a bad beret in a high wind. She tugs her fingers through it to try and flatten the mess, praying that hunkalicious doesn’t look up and see her, like some chick pulling her hair out ‘cause he’s so hot.
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)
One one level, Nullarbor Pearl keeps it real as a young woman’s quest to return to the nostalgic Outback of her birth, where she meets whimsical characters drawn with wry humour. This coming of age road trip soon transforms into a compelling magic realist fable for all ages that is very hard to put down . . . a MUST read.
– Malcolm Fiahlo, Leisure Activist
Wayne Brown – Life Alignment Specialist
I am not a professional critic, however, I do enjoy a good story and Nullarbor Pearl is a very good story. I was engrossed in the narrative and it was very much a “Can’t put it down” read. I finished it in two and a half days. I enjoyed the characters, the little world that they inhabit and I loved the twists that actually made me gasp out loud. If this is indicative of how well Sarah will write future books, I am lining up for the next one. Do yourself a favour and grab this book. I’m going back for a re-read.
– Wayne Brown, Life Alignment Specialist
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)
Most of us connect magical realism with the lushness of tropical Latin America, especially in the works of the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But the genre knows no borders, and finds its way in Sarah Rossetti’s often-dazzling new novel to land slap-bang in the aridness of the Nullarbor Plain. Dust and flies are hardly the stuff of imaginary worlds, so with all the literary confidence of a born diviner, Rossetti places water at the heart of the story.
In doing so, she follows examples by two of Australia’s most successful writers: Tim Winton’s Breath and Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe, both of whom embrace the hybrid ground that increasingly traverses young adult and adult fiction. As those works did, Rossetti’s imagined world – filled with a diverse range of fascinating characters – deserves to make its way onto the screen as a fully-realised movie. (The novel began as a lengthy poem, also called “Nullarbor Pearl”, metamorphosised into a short film, Pilbara Pearl, before returning to the Nullarbor fiction setting.)
When eighteen-year-old Pearl decides to uproot from her claustrophobic, troubled existence in Perth, abandoned by her father and dismissed by her mother, she heads east into the endless unknown – a journey that immediately brings to mind two literary/cinematic tropes, the road movie and the vastness of the Outback. She’s on a bus when she meets Eddie, a young knockabout drifter who spends his life fixing windmills. Pearl is Indigenous, Eddie is White. There’s a spark of course to get things rolling, but Eddie is the pragmatist and Pearl’s apparently the dreamer. (Themes of identity and reconciliation run like aquifers beneath the novel’s surface, even more notably in the wake of the failed Voice referendum.) Into the picture steps, or rides on his motorbike, the Italian cave diver Massimo: the love interest splits three ways, and who get the girl?
Possibly no-one, because Pearl is on a greater quest: to shake off a family curse.
This is where the magical realism takes off. Stopping at her aunt’s rundown highway roadhouse, Pearl becomes fascinated by a fish tank. It’s nothing special to the rest of us, but for Pearl it’s another world, which she enters simply by dunking her head fully into the tank, holding her breath as long as possible, and navigating an aquatic expanse that opens endless vistas of possibilities and danger. Perhaps the tank offers a chance to solve the mystery that has plagued all the women in her line, starting with her Great-Grandma Pearl. As a literary device it’s effective, and convincing – swiftly switched worlds that match Pearl’s own dichotomies about her family past and own future. How long can she keep her head underwater? One minute, two minutes? How long do you need to find the answer that will take you forward on the highway of life?
With a snappy tongue, Pearl comes alive as the novel’s main character: she’s tough but not aggressive, sensitive to the world around her, but determined to find the answers she seeks. ‘Do what you like,’ someone says to her. ‘You always do.’ An elliptical narrative filled with big ideas under the cover of Australian slang and colloquialisms, Nullarbor Pearl mixes magic and harsh Outback realities, gritty dialogue and ethereal visions to produce a must-read for young adults and adult readers alike.
5 Stars!
– Tony Maniaty, author and Weekend Australian reviewer
Matheos Vandoros – businessman in retirement.
Nullarbor Pearl is a fascinating cinematic visualisation experience. An delightful amalgam of earthiness, spiritualism and the sophistication of polyculturalism. Brava Dr Sarah Rossetti!
– Matheos Vandoros, businessman in retirement.
Catherine Fischer
An ideal book club read: intriguing, pacy, a voyage of discovery. Don’t miss it!
– Catherine Fischer, Retiree
Rita La Bianca
Nullarbor Pearl is a great read about a talented teenage artist who is blissfully unaware of her ability to “see” and her cultural background.
Her colourful journey from Coogee Beach to the Nullarbor Plain, the characters she meets along the way and the eventual outcome are testament to Rossetti’s ability to spin a compelling story that takes the reader into the “depths” of mysticism and realism.
– Rita La Bianca, Writer
Cathy Brown
This book is enormously entertaining, as it operates on a number of levels and makes an intriguing and entertaining read. As the story unfolds, Pearl develops into an accidental healer, using the fish tank as a portal to access her powerful subconscious mind and releases blockages which have hampered her personal development. A must read!
– Cathy Brown, Author, Hypnotherapist and Life Coach
Matheos Vandoros
In this novel the stage is set for the reader to enjoy a great read, but also feel the jolt to the senses, an awakening to a deep-seated socio-racial and cultural reality. The immigrant in me reads Nullarbor Pearl at least twice. A novel that re-kindles the immigrant’s sense of adventure, cultural curiosity and struggle with a never ending search for solutions – outcomes. This novel is relatable to whomever cares about the when, the why, the now and the how. I found Dr Sarah Rossetti’s menu of “food for thought” novel a blend of pragmatism and subjectivity, a cocktail of emotions that resolves a living pulsating provocation to the citizenry. In this novel, European culture is a protagonist also, the a living evolving, impure Yanush, receiving and giving, not as an assimilated stagnant one with rigid walls built around him like an impenetrable fortress. I highly recommend this book to all immigrants, particularly in urban areas where human congestion festers an epidemic of alienation. What is next Dr Sarah Rossetti? Something as evocative I hope!
Valery Niazov
A wondrous tale, symphonic in its magical realist contrasts. A mesmerising blend of intoxicating desert life imbued with artistic and aquatic imagination.
– Valery Niazov, Composer
Jo Keeling
Dr. Sarah Rossetti’s debut novel, Nullarbor Pearl enables white Australians to enter the world of our First Nation’s People, to gain some insight and much needed understanding of their culture, at last. Firstly, it entertains us, then intrigues us, delivering in a unique vision, gorgeous images and a captivating plot. Finally, a novel which transports us through superbly garnered language to broaden the meaning of what it means to be Australian. A superbly engaging bookclub read and an ideal text for the high school curriculum, as it will prompt debate and is suitable for young and old. We await more of your unique novels, Dr. Rossetti.
– Jo Keeling, Entrepreneur
Col Thompson
Loved this Nullarbor romp with Pearl. It’s got everything. Red dust, mysterious sliding doors, fast cars very interesting characters and a generous amount of boy-girl stuff. Don’t miss it.
– Col Thompson
Tony Maniaty
An elliptical road movie of a book, blending magical realism and harsh Outback realities through the eyes of teenager-on-the-run, Pearl, whose escapes into a fantastic undersea, ancestral realm bring clarity to a hostile world. Gritty dialogue and etherial visions make Nullarbor Pearl a must-read for young adults and adults alike.
– Tony Maniaty, author and Weekend Australian reviewer.
laurence De Pledge
What an amazing book full of fallible outback characters the Author has cunningly brought to life. There’s the clash of vastly different love interest for punchy Pearl who is risking her life to solve the mystery of her existence. I don’t read many novels, but this one grabbed me… Hard to put down once starting.
– Laurence De Pledge
Mark Rouse
With the World currently facing so many harsh realities, the timing of this delightful story, with such charming escapism, is very welcome. It is also lovely to read a story that embraces our own Australian setting and culture as a backdrop. Mark Rouse – Writer.
Malcolm Fiahlo, Leisure Activist
On one level, Nullarbor Pearl keeps it real as a young woman’s quest to return to the nostalgic Outback of her birth, where she meets whimsical characters, drawn with wry humour. This coming of age road trip soon transforms into a compelling magic realist fable for all ages that is very hard to put down . . . a MUST read.
Maria De Cinque
Nullarbor Pearl captivated me from the first page. It seamlessly blends reality and magic, taking me on a journey through the vast Australian Outback alongside Pearl, a character whose strength and vulnerability resonated deeply with me. Dr. Sarah Rossetti’s storytelling prowess kept me hooked until the very end, leaving me both breathless and eager for more. An unforgettable read that tugs at the heartstrings and expands the boundaries of the imagination. Highly recommended!
– Maria De Cinque, Theta Healing Therapist