After some year of Purgatory, D.J. Manly decided to condone Marshall and give him his happily ever after… but not too soon.

In Arsenic and Rio, Marshall tried to poison Angelo, the man he said to love. True, Marshall was a young troubled boy and he was deceived by Hal, but still Marshall really tried to kill Angelo and so it’s quite right that Angelo, at the end of that book, even if still in love with Marshall, is not able to completely forgive him. And probably the author thought that Marshall had to grow, he has to find the strength to have an independent life and then he will be allowed to love again Angelo.

At the end of the previous book, Marshall and Angelo are too far away from each other, on many levels. Angelo is way to rich and emotional stable than Marshall; Marshall has never had a normal life, and if Angelo forgives him too soon, Marshall will simply shift for an emotional dependence, to Hal, to another, to Angelo; and maybe Angelo is not yet convinced that Marshall is really sorry for what he did.

After Arsenic and Rio begins 3 years after the last meeting between Angelo and Marshall. Marshall is now a business owner, he has a new life, and also a new partner. If people think Marshall having a partner is a betrayal to Angelo, I think instead it’s a way to prove that he tried to go on with his life. Obviously he is not happy, and he is still mourning the loss of Angelo. Marshall grew up and now he is righter for Angelo than before. On the other hand Angelo dirtied himself a bit: he didn’t cope well with his bad experience, he became an alcoholic, and is not able to have a stable relationship.

For how strange it sounds, I like that both men had other relationships in between the stories: it’s a way for them to understand who they really love and so, when they meet again, and the love is still strong, to the reader their sudden rapprochement doesn’t ring wrong. They had the chance to understand what they lost and now they are ready to fight for having it again.

To the reader who, like me, poured tears on Marshall and Angelo unhappily ever after ending, After Arsenic and Rio is a must read. True, you will pour some tears again, I did for Duncan, a character who I hoped, vainly, to see happy, but he was probably a too complicated story.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/953110.html