Review and Giveaway: No Apologies by Sybil Bartel

REVIEW

I never wanted to love and I never wanted anyone to love me.

What makes a good love story? What captivates you and what prevents you to forget about it after its last page? It seems that Sybil Bartel found some winning answers, because No Apologies, if it is to be read not only in a linear way, it will provide you reasons to be remembered.

Superficially we could say that it's the same old same love story of taming a bad boy. But looking thoroughly you will notice that both, the characters and the action, give the reader the opportunity to discover profundity as each individual layer and substrate are disclosed, getting to understand their motivations and impulses and, even if they are frustrating, to understand their decisions. Together they create a beautiful story and they convey in the same time messages for whom want to see… or understand them.

The author, a declared lover of the angst ("I love the angst-desperately, obsessively, adoringly-love the angst.") lades at the maximum the characters’ baggage, but she knows not to cross that reader’s boundary of acceptability keeping everything between the limits, whether of their malleability, of the possible.

The way the main character, Graham, tells his story, with honesty and critical of himself, will captivate you, will make you curious and with the hope that he will be able to see that there is nothing definitively lost, the aftermath of the past is not an absolute one and the happiness can be found, and more important that he has what it takes to save another soul.

“Börn er vis sorg, men uvis gläede.” “What the fuck does that mean?” “Children are definitive sorrow but untold joy.” Neil

The secondary characters are inspired, they support, motivate and reveal Graham's character. Surely, some of them will rise a particular interest and, as they were created, they promise and allow good stories for themselves (for Mrs. Sybil Bartel: I consider Neil and Hank).

As I have said on other occasions, not the destination is important in a romance - it is presumed to be the HEA, but the journey. No Apologies is an emotional one in which Sybil Bartel had the inspiration to introduce twists, mistakes, new risks, moments when everything can be lost, but leaving open doors for those involved, which is why, although readers’ preferences vary, you have reasons to you like this story.

Carly wasn’t casual and I wasn’t more. I knew how this was gonna play out and it wouldn’t be pretty.

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About the author:

Sybil grew up in Northern California with her head in a book and her feet in the sand. She used to dream of becoming a painter but the heady scent of libraries with their shelves full of books about wistful summer days and first loves drew her into the world of storytelling. Her true literary love is the New Adult genre but really, any story about a love so desperately wrong and impossibly beautiful, makes her swoon.

Sybil now resides in Southern Florida and while she doesn't get to read as much as she likes, she still buries her toes in the sand. If she's not writing or fighting to contain the banana plantation in her backyard, you can find her spending time with her handsomely tattooed husband, her brilliantly practical son and a mischievous miniature boxer who stole her heart.

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