Review: I am not a huge fan of the roller coaster.  Well color me surprised, I really liked the story.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 3, 2013
I was not anticipating liking this story. Obviously not the way I normally approach a story let alone start a review.I'll explain, I know Savage from the fandom. She is notorious for her cliffies and ending a story with more questions than answers. Don't get me wrong, she is a very talented story teller, but also very frustrating at the same time.You either love her stories or hate them. A roller coaster.I am not a huge fan of the roller coaster.Well color me surprised, I really liked the story.But seriously. Otherwise Alone is an amazingly well written novella. And novellas are hard in my opinion.Whether the dreaded smutty vs porn debacles that occur or just a story, the writer must convey an actual full story line, characterizations, and a balanced prose.Novellas are just to short to make up anything lacking and will be horrendous if the points are not all hit. A sprint so to speak and you have to be cooking right out of the blocks.The author cooked this story to perfection!It is a really good story line filled with all kinds of mystery. A touch of smexiness too. That caught me by surprise but definitely made sense, was balanced and appropriate to the situation.This is the story of Evan who is sitting alone with his dog out in the middle of the desert, waiting on an email allowing him to return to civilization. You see, Evan is a hit man and made a mistake. His alone time or down time, is his punishment.The author gives a very nice background who Arden is. Where he came from. Why he is where he is. His hopes, personalities, strengths, and weakness'.Then we have Lia. She stumbles in to his life wandering across the desert. Her story is a mystery as well. After all, who wanders the desert voluntarily?They meet, talk, hook up, make promises, and move on.This is all done within this short story and done very well. The author conveys the right amount of emotion for both characters. I found Evan and Lia very engaging and likable. A bit edgy but definitely likable. I personally wouldn't mind seeing more of these two. I think there is a really good story to be told.I saw a lot of reviews grumble they wanted more, wanted to know what happened. That the author needed to continue the story. I was fine with the ending. The story stood on it's own, as any good short story should. There was nothing glaringly left hanging that would make me consider it a non-ending. It could continue or not. Was very pleased that the author gave me the choice.There is nothing worse than the "are you kidding me ending?!?"All in all, I liked this story a lot. Savage completely surprised me and that makes me very happy. Always pleased when the author surprises me.I will definitely have my eye on Savage to see what else is in her bag of tricks.o_O*Note - there will be a continuation of Evan and Lia's story in Otherwise Occupied due out this summer.