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Like This Afternoon Forever
Two Catholic priests fall in love amid deadly conflicts in the Amazon between the Colombian government, insurgent groups, and drug cartels.
For the last fifty years, the Colombian drug cartels, various insurgent groups, and the government have fought over the control of the drug traffic, in the process destroying vast stretches of the Amazon, devastating Indian communities, and killing tens of thousands of homesteaders caught in the middle of the conflict.
Inspired by these events, Jaime Manrique’s sixth novel, Like This Afternoon Forever, weaves in two narratives: the shocking story of a series of murders known internationally as the “false positives,” and the related story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers when they meet in the seminary.
Lucas (the son of farmers) and Ignacio (a descendant of the Barí indigenous people) enter the seminary out of a desire to help others and to get an education. Their visceral love story undergoes stages of passion, indifference, rage, and a final commitment to stay together until the end of their lives. Working in a community largely composed of people displaced by the war, Ignacio stumbles upon the horrifying story of the false positives, which will put the lives of the two men in grave danger.
A novel on our Kaylie Jones Books imprint.
For the last fifty years, the Colombian drug cartels, various insurgent groups, and the government have fought over the control of the drug traffic, in the process destroying vast stretches of the Amazon, devastating Indian communities, and killing tens of thousands of homesteaders caught in the middle of the conflict.
Inspired by these events, Jaime Manrique’s sixth novel, Like This Afternoon Forever, weaves in two narratives: the shocking story of a series of murders known internationally as the “false positives,” and the related story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers when they meet in the seminary.
Lucas (the son of farmers) and Ignacio (a descendant of the Barí indigenous people) enter the seminary out of a desire to help others and to get an education. Their visceral love story undergoes stages of passion, indifference, rage, and a final commitment to stay together until the end of their lives. Working in a community largely composed of people displaced by the war, Ignacio stumbles upon the horrifying story of the false positives, which will put the lives of the two men in grave danger.
A novel on our Kaylie Jones Books imprint.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published June 4, 2019
14 people are currently reading
331 people want to read
About the author
Jaime Manrique
25 books39 followersJaime Manrique (16 June 1949 - ) Colombian American author, poet, and journalist.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
January 29, 2020
This is an important book for so many reasons. Not only is it well-written, but it's a book about ideas - difficult ideas, and that's what good important fiction is about. Manrique depicts a serious spiritual journey for not one but two characters who struggle with how to serve god if you want to call it that - or in a larger sense how to be of service in a brutal and unjust world. He sets up an interesting juxtaposition between the two priest lovers - the one with faith and kindness, the other with conviction and a desire to confront injustice, which culminates in a wonderful exchange between these characters about the difference between being good and having a conscience. But that's not the only big idea in this story - there is also the brutal reality of Colombia's civil war, and in a universal sense, the struggles that are going on in all of Latin America, if not most of the world. Corrupt govts., callous economics, calculating churches, ruthless gangs and ideologue revolutionaries, with all the groups that play them off each other, make for a very profound examination of contemporary society and the current world order. Ultimately this is a wise book with a wise approach to the totally believable love story between two men and all the challenges every society presents to such an affection, as well as to how to make one's way in the world and do what is right. It's an amazing accomplishment in just over 200 pages, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable book to read because of Manrique's masterful prose and moral heart. Dare I say this is the story of the human heart in dangerous and dire times? It's a daring book - so yeah, in that spirit, I've said it.
June 26, 2019
This beautiful, lyrical book reminds me of the way reading felt when I was young -- that I found novels that engaged both my mind and heart. Manrique's fluid and evocative prose inspired me and showed me the world again, new, in a way I'd forgotten it was. The love affair the novel painstakingly describes demonstrates the true nature of love -- its freedoms and its prisons and it provides us with our reason for being here on earth. Manrique is fiercely brave in showing us the political situation in Columbia, which is almost too painful to confront, but how it is different here in the United States now? Although his book tells the story of priests and their callings, is a writer's calling different? Manrique braids these questions into a intricate telling of the pleasures and costs of being human among other humans with their savage and loving hearts. I highly recommend this volume. The haunting title is a fitting reflection of the texture of the powerful story.
October 8, 2019
Ignacio and Lucas meet as adolescents at a Catholic school in a small town in Colombia at a turbulent time in the country’s recent history, the early 1990s. As their sexuality emerges they become lovers in a society with very little tolerance. Rather than follow a more traditional pathway to adulthood they take refuge in a Seminary where there are more gay young men, though closeted, leading lives of mental conflict, and secretive relationships. Each chapter of the novel is another stage of their lives, and they pass to University in Bogotá and parishes of their own as priests.
This is an uneven novel which at times is difficult to follow, but it generates plenty of interest both in the violent period in Colombia seen from a different angle, and in its insight into the lives of young gay men at a time when AIDS was prevalent, and it’s treatment uncertain. Plot and character development are frustratingly messy, and leave a feeling that the book may have been rush-released. For example, it unnecessarily switches between narrators; having opened with a focus on Lucas as a young teenager, the novel then switches to Ignacio’s life, with Lucas ignored for the next 3 years.
There are passing references to an atrocity committed by FARC guerrillas in which many young men and boys were murdered; but Marique doesn’t include enough information, and I found myself searching on the internet for more detail.
There’s a good novel hiding in here somewhere, but really it needs a rewrite.
This is an uneven novel which at times is difficult to follow, but it generates plenty of interest both in the violent period in Colombia seen from a different angle, and in its insight into the lives of young gay men at a time when AIDS was prevalent, and it’s treatment uncertain. Plot and character development are frustratingly messy, and leave a feeling that the book may have been rush-released. For example, it unnecessarily switches between narrators; having opened with a focus on Lucas as a young teenager, the novel then switches to Ignacio’s life, with Lucas ignored for the next 3 years.
There are passing references to an atrocity committed by FARC guerrillas in which many young men and boys were murdered; but Marique doesn’t include enough information, and I found myself searching on the internet for more detail.
There’s a good novel hiding in here somewhere, but really it needs a rewrite.
May 7, 2021
How cruel that in death we will not be together as we were in life
I needed this type of catharsis right now.
I needed this type of catharsis right now.
June 16, 2021
This novel tells the story of Lucas, whose mother left his violent father and managed to make a life for the two of them, and of Ignacio, son of indigenous subsistence farmers, both of whom showed an aptitude for learning which led to them being given the opportunity to go to a Catholic boarding school with the promise of being able to attend university and become priests. When they meet, they quickly become close friends, and then discover a love that would keep them together for the rest of their lives.
Colombia during the nineties and early 2000s was a violent place with many rural areas under the control of guerrilla groups and the military matching them in ruthlessness and corruption. As Lucas and Ignacio grow up in Catholic boarding schools and then go to university, Lucas grows stronger in his faith and Ignacio's fierce intelligence has him exploring the history of liberation theology. After they are ordained, they are sent into different neighborhoods in Bogota. Ignacio is sent to the most crime-ridden and poor parish, where he works hard to improve the lives of his parishioners and where he learns about the "false positives," and tries to get that story out into the world. Both his activism and his homosexuality put Ignacio into great danger.
This is a novel with a lot going on, so much so that it sometimes feels like a summary. The passages where Manrique slows down and describes the setting or the relationship between the men, the writing is beautiful and the story a lovely, if melancholic one.
Colombia during the nineties and early 2000s was a violent place with many rural areas under the control of guerrilla groups and the military matching them in ruthlessness and corruption. As Lucas and Ignacio grow up in Catholic boarding schools and then go to university, Lucas grows stronger in his faith and Ignacio's fierce intelligence has him exploring the history of liberation theology. After they are ordained, they are sent into different neighborhoods in Bogota. Ignacio is sent to the most crime-ridden and poor parish, where he works hard to improve the lives of his parishioners and where he learns about the "false positives," and tries to get that story out into the world. Both his activism and his homosexuality put Ignacio into great danger.
This is a novel with a lot going on, so much so that it sometimes feels like a summary. The passages where Manrique slows down and describes the setting or the relationship between the men, the writing is beautiful and the story a lovely, if melancholic one.
July 18, 2021
Like this Afternoon Forever follows two young lovers involved in the Catholic church during the Colombian conflict. But this is far from a love story, it's more of a spiritual and political journey as the author raises questions around the difference between morality as taught by religion vs. actual conscience, injustice vs. privilege.
I loved the political discussions in this book. One of the characters falls deep into a self-destructive mode, feeling helpless in the face of disappearing civilians, victims of the war. I think it brought alive some of my own frustrations regarding what's happening in my country. The disgusting corruption, the safety of privilege, and the only victims being the dispossessed who have no say in their fates. I understand that feeling of utter rage and shame at oneself about being unable to do anything at all. Also, it gives words to some of my struggles with organized religion and faith.
Having said that, I think this book tried to pack in too many things at once for a pretty short novel, which is where it lost me towards the end. I still think it was a time well spent as it led me to reading more about the Colombian conflict. And isn't that what literature is supposed to do in the end? Make us more aware of the world and its struggles beyond our immediate surroundings.
I loved the political discussions in this book. One of the characters falls deep into a self-destructive mode, feeling helpless in the face of disappearing civilians, victims of the war. I think it brought alive some of my own frustrations regarding what's happening in my country. The disgusting corruption, the safety of privilege, and the only victims being the dispossessed who have no say in their fates. I understand that feeling of utter rage and shame at oneself about being unable to do anything at all. Also, it gives words to some of my struggles with organized religion and faith.
Having said that, I think this book tried to pack in too many things at once for a pretty short novel, which is where it lost me towards the end. I still think it was a time well spent as it led me to reading more about the Colombian conflict. And isn't that what literature is supposed to do in the end? Make us more aware of the world and its struggles beyond our immediate surroundings.
July 26, 2020
Este libro me cautivó a nivel temático, mas no a nivel narrativo.
Creo que su importancia reside en la gran cantidad de maneras en la que explora los desafíos sociales de Colombia: la homosexualidad, la religión, las guerrillas, la identidad nacional, etc. De hecho, brinda una perspectiva interesante de la unión de todas estas variantes y eso fue lo que me motivó a seguir leyéndolo. Sin embargo, no llegué a conectar del todo con sus personajes ni con la historia en sí.
He aprendido mucho (muchísimo), sí. Y me ha abierto los ojos a perspectivas que no hubiera imaginado antes, especialmente, en el ámbito religioso, el cual se ve reflejado en las posturas opuestas que defienden Ignacio y Lucas, los dos protagonistas de la historia. Hubo muchas frases que despertaron un remolino de dudas y cuestionamientos en mi cabeza que realmente agradezco mucho.
Y aunque eso es algo que disfruté muchísimo y que considero que es el punto fuerte del libro, creo que también es su punto débil, pues son tantas las dudas y los enfrentamientos internos de los personajes que, al final, estos terminan por absorber por completo la historia.
¿Lo recomiendo? Por supuesto que sí, es un título que le dará muchas vueltas de tuerca al lector. Y, de hecho, creo que es un libro necesario de leer, pero si esperan una novela que recordarán para siempre como historia, esta no es la mejor opción.
Como nota aparte, debo decir que leí el libro en inglés, idioma que, si mal no recuerdo, es el idioma original de publicación. Para los que quieren aventurarse, me parece que, con un nivel de conocimiento intermedio de inglés, pueden lograrlo sin mayor complicaciones.
Creo que su importancia reside en la gran cantidad de maneras en la que explora los desafíos sociales de Colombia: la homosexualidad, la religión, las guerrillas, la identidad nacional, etc. De hecho, brinda una perspectiva interesante de la unión de todas estas variantes y eso fue lo que me motivó a seguir leyéndolo. Sin embargo, no llegué a conectar del todo con sus personajes ni con la historia en sí.
He aprendido mucho (muchísimo), sí. Y me ha abierto los ojos a perspectivas que no hubiera imaginado antes, especialmente, en el ámbito religioso, el cual se ve reflejado en las posturas opuestas que defienden Ignacio y Lucas, los dos protagonistas de la historia. Hubo muchas frases que despertaron un remolino de dudas y cuestionamientos en mi cabeza que realmente agradezco mucho.
Y aunque eso es algo que disfruté muchísimo y que considero que es el punto fuerte del libro, creo que también es su punto débil, pues son tantas las dudas y los enfrentamientos internos de los personajes que, al final, estos terminan por absorber por completo la historia.
¿Lo recomiendo? Por supuesto que sí, es un título que le dará muchas vueltas de tuerca al lector. Y, de hecho, creo que es un libro necesario de leer, pero si esperan una novela que recordarán para siempre como historia, esta no es la mejor opción.
Como nota aparte, debo decir que leí el libro en inglés, idioma que, si mal no recuerdo, es el idioma original de publicación. Para los que quieren aventurarse, me parece que, con un nivel de conocimiento intermedio de inglés, pueden lograrlo sin mayor complicaciones.
September 23, 2019
I read Jaime Manrique's new movel Like This Afternoon Forever, a novel about homosexuality, the priesthood, and drug politics in Colombia. Descriptions of it refer to the issue of false positives, though in fact that's just one part of the narrative. Two Catholic priests, Ignacio and Lucas, meet as children, fall in love, and eventually end up in Bogotá together.
The book's style is very straightforward, which belies the complexities of what's occurring. There is of course the fact that two priests are a couple, though in fact that is not so uncommon. But there is also poverty that drives them to deep frustration, doubts about God, the challenge of AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse, and Colombian politics. The government, the military, the police, the drug traffickers, and the paramilitaries are all complicit in the same game, all to the detriment of most Colombians.* That's the backdrop for the dramatic end of the novel. In and out itself, the prose is not so memorable but the story and images will stick with me.
*This is also a major theme about El Salvador in Sandra Benitez's excellent novel The Weight of All Things, where all sides in political conflict are bad for the ordinary person.
From https://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2019...
The book's style is very straightforward, which belies the complexities of what's occurring. There is of course the fact that two priests are a couple, though in fact that is not so uncommon. But there is also poverty that drives them to deep frustration, doubts about God, the challenge of AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse, and Colombian politics. The government, the military, the police, the drug traffickers, and the paramilitaries are all complicit in the same game, all to the detriment of most Colombians.* That's the backdrop for the dramatic end of the novel. In and out itself, the prose is not so memorable but the story and images will stick with me.
*This is also a major theme about El Salvador in Sandra Benitez's excellent novel The Weight of All Things, where all sides in political conflict are bad for the ordinary person.
From https://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2019...
April 3, 2020
"Like This Afternoon Forever" is a magical, minimal story of the beauties and deep, deep complexities of gay love in 90s and early aughts.
Jamie Manrique tells the story of Lucas and Ignacio, two boys in Colombia who meet when they are young and fall in love while at seminary in the jungles. There love is strong and endures as they both become priests in Bogota - Ignacio ministering fervently to the poor classes who are victims to the drug cartels, military, and guerillas, while Lucas ministers to the upper-middle classes. Though their politics and spirituality are distinct, their love for each other remains. This love, though, is tested as the couple struggles with non-monogamy, the threat of AIDS, and drug addiction.
Lucas and Ignacio's love story is a gay love story for the ages that transcends cultural and social boundaries. It's the story of love through triumphant and through loss - through it all.
Jamie Manrique tells the story of Lucas and Ignacio, two boys in Colombia who meet when they are young and fall in love while at seminary in the jungles. There love is strong and endures as they both become priests in Bogota - Ignacio ministering fervently to the poor classes who are victims to the drug cartels, military, and guerillas, while Lucas ministers to the upper-middle classes. Though their politics and spirituality are distinct, their love for each other remains. This love, though, is tested as the couple struggles with non-monogamy, the threat of AIDS, and drug addiction.
Lucas and Ignacio's love story is a gay love story for the ages that transcends cultural and social boundaries. It's the story of love through triumphant and through loss - through it all.
December 22, 2021
Lucas, a boy from Güicán, a rural region in the Department of Boyacá in Colombia, ends up in Bogotá fortuitously after being transported there for medical care. His mother, who has abandoned her family to escape her husband’s violence toward her, finds out about this illness and comes to take him away, that he need not return to the farm. In a Jesuit school he meets Ignacio, a boy of indigenous Bari ancestry, committed to the religious life by his parents before his birth, so intensely rebellious in his search for truth amidst religious superstition, that he is banished to a Jesuit school in the jungle of Putumayo, a place where the Colombian army, antigovernment forces and drug traffickers compete for supremacy, but also where same-sex romantic and sexual activity is conducted openly by priests and their seminarians. In time Lucas joins him there, and what had been a youthful infatuation becomes a loving relationship between them, which will last through their university years. Eventually Ignacio’s commitment to social causes and his need to live openly, added to Lucas’ restraint, strain their relationship and put him at odds with the church’s hierarchy. Nonetheless, when life itself tests their bonds, they will not fail each other.
While this novel could be labeled a gay narration, it transcends such a categorization. At its base is the generational sustainment of violence blended with hypertrophied machismo, a multidimensional incursion into undying love gives meaning to an otherwise bleak existence. The references to Lucas’ father’s ancestors’ fate at the beginning of the story foreshadows what seems to be a constant in Colombian history, where “la violencia” is an enduring historical phenomenon made more acute by the flourishing drug economy and culture. The nefarious effects of corruption among the military and even those who purport to fight idealistically for the rights of peasants and the poor while annihilating them for their own enrichment is present in every episode as an inherited plague that goes from rural death by machete to urban gang warfare. All bourgeois values are turned on their head: the church will not lift its voice against the abuses of the military, priests spend their nights in gay clubs, and government officials make use of their power to crush the people who elect them.
The story is set in the 21st century, but its background is what contemporary Colombian history has dragged across time to evolve as something much different from the founders’ plan. Ignacio is a synthesis of Colombian history, to a certain extent, propped up by a romantic rationalism and imbued with the ideal of a just and free society that goes through time degrading that goal and succumbing instead in the mire. He is a flawed insecure hero caught between his rational skepticism about the faith he is presumed to champion, his social conscience, and his human condition. From a more universalist perspective, he is an Odysseus who refuses to be tied to the mast and jumps in the water to follow the mermaids, Achilles with a vulnerable heart, besides both heels, and Sisyphus crushed by the boulder he thought he had finally raised to the top of the hill.
Regardless of your sexual orientation or whether you are familiar with Colombian history to the present day and with the Catholic religion, this harrowing story of love, cruelty, sacrifice, self-immolation, and duplicity will haunt you.
--Joseph F. Delgado, author of The Tango of the Shipwreck: A Novel
While this novel could be labeled a gay narration, it transcends such a categorization. At its base is the generational sustainment of violence blended with hypertrophied machismo, a multidimensional incursion into undying love gives meaning to an otherwise bleak existence. The references to Lucas’ father’s ancestors’ fate at the beginning of the story foreshadows what seems to be a constant in Colombian history, where “la violencia” is an enduring historical phenomenon made more acute by the flourishing drug economy and culture. The nefarious effects of corruption among the military and even those who purport to fight idealistically for the rights of peasants and the poor while annihilating them for their own enrichment is present in every episode as an inherited plague that goes from rural death by machete to urban gang warfare. All bourgeois values are turned on their head: the church will not lift its voice against the abuses of the military, priests spend their nights in gay clubs, and government officials make use of their power to crush the people who elect them.
The story is set in the 21st century, but its background is what contemporary Colombian history has dragged across time to evolve as something much different from the founders’ plan. Ignacio is a synthesis of Colombian history, to a certain extent, propped up by a romantic rationalism and imbued with the ideal of a just and free society that goes through time degrading that goal and succumbing instead in the mire. He is a flawed insecure hero caught between his rational skepticism about the faith he is presumed to champion, his social conscience, and his human condition. From a more universalist perspective, he is an Odysseus who refuses to be tied to the mast and jumps in the water to follow the mermaids, Achilles with a vulnerable heart, besides both heels, and Sisyphus crushed by the boulder he thought he had finally raised to the top of the hill.
Regardless of your sexual orientation or whether you are familiar with Colombian history to the present day and with the Catholic religion, this harrowing story of love, cruelty, sacrifice, self-immolation, and duplicity will haunt you.
--Joseph F. Delgado, author of The Tango of the Shipwreck: A Novel
May 15, 2022
But if God is love, he tried to reassure himself, then He understands.
★★★★★
I started this book before going to bed, stayed up all through the night finishing it, and then attempted to write this review through the tears. There are no words adequate enough to express the emotional state I've been left in - “hollowed out,” “devastated,” “lost” don’t really encapsulate it and all sound a bit too…dramatic? Regardless, this is one of the most profound and downright depressing stories I’ve ever read. There is so much brutality and bleakness, but also so many moments of beauty. The characterization in particular here is also just phenomenal. There is no black and white morality, no saints and demons, just humans with all their capacity for good and evil.
As expected from the synopsis, Like This Afternoon Forever does grapple significantly with the concept of religion (specifically Catholicism) among MANY other things like poverty, homosexuality, and the Colombian civil war. However, you really don’t have to be familiar with it to appreciate the story. I have never been a religious person, but still found the themes depicted, the struggles encountered, and the questions raised to be "universal" and incredibly thought provoking.
In the acknowledgement, the author confides that he started, and struggled with, writing this story after the death of his longtime partner. When I saw that statement, all of a sudden I understood the palpable sense of overwhelming grief that seems to permeate the entirety of the book. It absolutely baffles me why Jaime Manrique isn’t swimming in awards and accolades and that this was really just a random borrow from the library for me. I can’t even wholeheartedly recommend Like This Afternoon Forever because it is once again an extremely difficult read, but it’s definitely one that needs to be experienced if you are able to. It will stay with you forever.
Just…wow.
— ♩♫♩ ~ A Pile of Dust
December 26, 2023
3.75 stars - like this afternoon forever is a compelling, memorable novel and character study of its 2 protagonists and their relationship thru adolescence and priesthood, set against the backdrop of the colombian civil war and its dark underbelly. lucas and ignacio couldnt be more different yet they find joy and solace in one another, though their relationship is not w/o its challenges, esp those brought abt by the latter.
i find the seminarian education and priesthood undertaken by the main characters to be informational, revelatory and even surprising by the open-secret nature of gay priests, inner politics and business side of things. lucas and ignacio's respective rumination on faith, religion, community and their own purposes are also thought-provoking, as well as helpful to fleshing out the characters into multidimentional ones w/ depth.
manrique demonstrates masterful storytelling thru this book, and tho the end result might be a lil uneven at points, it's nonetheless a melancholic yet moving one that will stay w/ me for a long time to come.
i find the seminarian education and priesthood undertaken by the main characters to be informational, revelatory and even surprising by the open-secret nature of gay priests, inner politics and business side of things. lucas and ignacio's respective rumination on faith, religion, community and their own purposes are also thought-provoking, as well as helpful to fleshing out the characters into multidimentional ones w/ depth.
manrique demonstrates masterful storytelling thru this book, and tho the end result might be a lil uneven at points, it's nonetheless a melancholic yet moving one that will stay w/ me for a long time to come.
January 8, 2026
I wish I knew more about Colombian history because something about this book raises my hackles, probably the repeated (as in like almost verbatim) reminders that there are no "good guys in this war." Obviously and incredibly simplistic framing, I'm sure. The rest of the book is similarly simplistic. I saw one reviewer on here say it often reads as a summary of a novel rather than the actual novel, and I agree but it's the whole book. I don't think this is a wholly bad thing, actually, because the breakneck pace makes it difficult to dwell on any one problem for long. I enjoyed the discussions of Catholic theology, the lives of priests in neighborhoods of varying socioeconomic status, and Ignacio's faithless Christianity. Sometimes I thought this was a bit whump-ish but its pace and grounding in a specific time and place makes it more tolerable than others I've read.
April 24, 2024
I sat down yesterday afternoon to read this book. Not expecting much out of it. In fact, I wasn't even planning on reading it. It was so good that I couldn't stop reading it even though I had lots of work to do. I finished it today.
Lucas and Ignacio are two priests who met when they were in high school studying to become priests. Lucas is from a poor Mestizo family. Ignacio is from an even poorer Bari family. They fall in love. Eventually, they become priests in Bogota where they take different paths.
A fabulous story. Complex characters. Interesting background about the civil war and the false positive scandal in Colombia.
Lucas and Ignacio are two priests who met when they were in high school studying to become priests. Lucas is from a poor Mestizo family. Ignacio is from an even poorer Bari family. They fall in love. Eventually, they become priests in Bogota where they take different paths.
A fabulous story. Complex characters. Interesting background about the civil war and the false positive scandal in Colombia.
July 27, 2025
I liked the story of the book, however the writing was a little bland to me. I am being probably a little harsh, but I was hoping for a bit more unique writing style to convey this books story. Because of that I give it 3 stars. But the book is definitely worth reading as it gives a great insight into the church and the story is interesting, but somewhat predictable.
November 19, 2025
A beautifully written love story set against the harsh realities of Colombia’s conflict. Lucas and Ignacio feel incredibly real, their devotion growing despite fear, war, and impossible choices. Manrique captures tenderness and danger with equal power, creating a story that lingers long after the last page. Emotional, haunting, and unforgettable.
November 19, 2025
Manrique delivers a moving portrait of two priests whose love deepens in the midst of chaos. The backdrop of the “false positives” adds chilling authenticity, while the romance remains tender and human. The writing is lyrical without losing clarity. A heartbreaking yet hopeful novel that balances personal emotion with historical truth.
November 19, 2025
This novel blends romance, faith, and political violence with remarkable sensitivity. Lucas and Ignacio’s connection feels intimate and honest, shaped by both desire and fear. The Amazon setting and the true events behind the conflict give the story emotional weight. It’s a beautifully crafted book that opens the heart and the eyes.
November 19, 2025
A gripping and deeply human story. Manrique writes with a poet’s touch, bringing to life two priests who discover love in a world determined to silence them. The Colombian conflict is portrayed with respect and clarity, making their relationship even more courageous. A touching, powerful, and memorable read.
November 19, 2025
This is a tender, courageous novel about love and survival amid violence. Lucas and Ignacio’s relationship feels genuine and vulnerable, shaped by the tragedies around them. Manrique handles the “false positives” with honesty, grounding the romance in real history. Beautifully written and emotionally resonant.
April 2, 2023
beautiful story of two boys navigating tenuous circumstances and complicated relationships with the church as they grow up together and love one another in secret and try to become the people they want to be and impact the world positively
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 19, 2025
Un tanto lento al iniciar, pero el contexto político y religioso entre el cual se vive el amor de dos hombres dedicados a la religión es durísimo, el autor lo retrata de forma maravillosa. Las últimas 60 páginas son una montaña rusa de enociones.
July 21, 2019
thoughts coming shortly
November 13, 2019
The very first novel I have read in Spanish. I’m very happy
May 13, 2020
“... and the Virgin of Chiquinquirá, who was half Virgin Mary, half Pachamama.”
August 20, 2020
Colombian priests deal with Govt, faith, drug gangs and poverty in face of their love for each other.
April 2, 2023
beautiful story. made me pause and mull over my understanding of catholicism and see its true possibility as a spirituality for social justice and for the betterment of society.
November 30, 2024
3.5- the story was great but the writing style didn't work for me, very passive
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews