My review:

If there’s one word that sums up this short story for me, it’s ‘atmosphere’. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that a short story must have action and/or dialogue on the first page in order to grab the reader’s attention, but Paul Bens ignores that in this story, and instead transports us into Toshi’s world, first in crowded, convention-bound Tokyo, and then in Waikiki. He shows us the sights and sounds and smells of the island, introduces us to its people and its customs, in such a way that the sense of place almost becomes a character in its own right. I have no idea if the descriptions are accurate, but I certainly found them evocative. This richness of description continues as the story progresses, on the beach and as Toshi and Kristopher play their game in the market place, and it works very well with the relaxed holiday mood throughout the piece.

Perhaps because of this however, the beginning of the piece feels a little old-fashioned. Moreover Toshi is a ‘conscious’ first-person narrator - he addresses the reader directly in the opening paragraph (‘… I write this down so that the memory does not fade from my mind …’). I’m not sure if this is a deliberate homage to Victorian novelists like R. L. Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle, but it’s not a technique that I’ve seen used very often in more modern fiction.

Toshi is a lovely character, at first deferential and hesitant in his Japanese persona, but he grows in confidence as the island works its magic until he can become what he needs to be. Kristopher is a little more enigmatic, but again effects his own transformation as the story progresses. This story doesn’t have a huge supporting cast, other than the men Toshi meets on the beach, and they are more or less sketches, but the overall richness of the atmosphere more than makes up for that.

But let’s not beat about the bush, this story is essentially about sex. Toshi goes to Hawaii in search of it, and he spends the story in pursuit of it. But the way it happens really tells what lies at the core of both Toshi’s and Kristopher’s characters. It illustrates perfectly their motivations and desires, and that makes this story more than a PWP.

It’s probably very Anglo-centric of me to be disappointed that the meaning of the title wasn’t revealed at the end, however it was relatively easy to find (in fact, in another review).

If you like relaxed, sexy m/m fiction, this story is like taking a mini-vacation in a tropical paradise.