Once upon a time, hacktivist Cyril Blanchard’s passionate letters won the heart of the woman he loved. Unfortunately, he let his best friend take the credit—and the girl. Robin discovered the truth years too late, after a hacking exploit gone south left her husband dead and Cyril in prison.

Now he’s out, and Robin says she’s prepared to give him a second chance. Unlikely. Cyril may be pretty on paper, but in real life he’s a belligerent, foul-mouthed neckbeard whose only coping mechanism is binge-eating his way back to five hundred pounds. So her offer to put him up in the ramshackle Victorian she’s renovating in small-town California seems less like forgiveness than a trap. Either that, or Robin’s lost her marbles. Possibly both.

Cyril doesn’t know what her game is, but he knows one thing for sure: he doesn’t get the girl.

He also can’t let her go.

We dive again in the story began in Surviving Cyril. This time round we have Cyril in the Flesh, literally. His perspective, his baggage, his secrets, the intricacies of why. His cause and effect.

As always Hootman is courageous in her writing. Her 'romances' are not the colour by number sort but are ones that touch the dirty as well as the clean, touching hate as well as love. No, definitely not the cupcake sort. Here she explores the love/hate relationship Cyril has with himself and with how the hate disables him, how it prevents him from loving himself and accepting the love of other. So yes, extreme, maybe violent quakes have to shake him loose.

This is Hootman's story for him, making the impossible, possible. A sweet, unsweet story of love.