Amor en Retrogrado by A.M. Riley

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I'm enchanted. Amor en Retrogrado is one book I hardly will forget. It's heartbreaking and real. It's a brilliant piece of fiction. It's not a M/M romance, cause it's a lot more. Have you understood that I love this book?

JD and Robert are a fifteen years old committed couple. But they have split one year before for a lot of reasons. But when Robert receives a call in the middle of the night telling him that JD is in hospital, in intensive care, and the man who was with him is dead, Robert doesn't esitate a minute to fly to his lover, his husband. Only that, when JD wakes up, he doesn't remember the last ten years of his life. He has bits of memories which tell him that he is in love with Robert, but doesn't remember to have left him. And doesn't remember who has shot him outside a gay club and killed his friend.

So Robert brings him home, to their home where he hasn't lived a real life since JD has gone, but he is reluctant to reawake their relationship, he fears that when JD will remember all the things he has forgotten, he will leave, being unable to forgive Robert. Cause even if all Robert's friends seem to retain JD an heartbreaker who follows all the twinks he meets, Robert knows that the real reason of JD's abandon is the green monster, the jelaousy, he can't prevent when someone else is around his man. And then there are problems old of years between them that time has not helped to smooth: Robert, even if gay and not ashamed of it, is also a very latino man, a bit bossy and very jelaous, but with the idea that fucking without love is not betrayal (obviously if the man who does it is him, cause if he only thinks to JD with another man...); instead at the beginning of their relationship JD was a man who feared his desires, an Irish catholic man who struggled to deny his love for Robert, and when finally he admitted it, he turned in a poster man for gay, being involved in all the associations he could find and igniting even more Robert's jelaousy.

The story starts with Robert who hurries to the side of JD and then, little by little, the flashbacks from their past life are fed to us, allowing the reader to understand this very in love couple who seems to not be able nor to live together or to live apart. Who is right or who is wrong is not important, what it is important is that they can find a way to accept the weakness of the other and walk together to an happily ever after, that maybe it will not be simple and smooth, but maybe this time it will be everlasting.

Robert and JD will not change. They will find a compromize and they will try to trust each other, but there will be a lot of fights between them. It's the life and it's the way a relationship should work: you don't have to change your partner, you have to complete him.

Obviously there is also a mystery, a very good one, let me say. For all the book you would try to find the clues to identify the culprit, but till the end the answer will evade you. I think this book will appeal to a lot of readers: to who wants the romance, but also to who loves mystery and thriller and even to who likes social matters, Robert and JD's story is also the story of a couple who met before AIDS, who lived through it and who survived it.

http://www.loose-id.net/prod-Amor_en_Retrogrado-636.aspx

Waiting Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=waiting+reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

Comments

[louisaclark.livejournal.com]

I'm enchanted.

You got my attention with your first sentence. *grins* I was looking really hard at this one, I guess I'll just mozy on over to Loose ID and buy.

LouisaClark

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

You will not be disappointed, it's a wonderful book. Elisa

[clarelondon.livejournal.com]

How exciting to hear how much this book thrilled and affected you! You always say some very kind and encouraging and constructive things about all the titles, but it's great to hear your passion for this one. It's certainly got my interest, I must say.
Thanks for sharing!
Clare :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Is it so clear that I have liked it a lot? but it's only deserved. Elisa