Short and Sweet: Lana Halliday by LuLu Sullivan

And to the point! Sometimes it is nice to read a short story or a novella, but it is not aways fair to compare them to longer stories with more time for plot and character development.
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Genre: Short Story
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 3 stars
Copy provided by author in exchange for an honest review.

In A Nutshell:
While I am in the middle of a very long book (Outlander by Diana Gabaldon), reading Lana Halliday was a wonderful and fun escape.  There are not a lot of pages to the story--but it accomplishes a lot in those pages with a lively plot and memorable characters. 

Review:
Short stories can be difficult to write.  Within the confines of a few pages, the author must bring out their characters, their action, and a complete story.  LuLu Sullivan does all of these things very well in Lana Halliday. 

Lana Halliday is the type of character who sticks with you.  She is part cleverness and ingenuity, part unabashed and unashamed honesty, and a part kindness who would do anything for a friend.  It is an unusual combination and an interesting combination to bring to light in so few pages.  And although I am not sure I would want to be her friend, she is definitely a character I would like to see again in more stories.

Even the more minor characters are well developed.  We may not see as many facets of their personality as we saw of Lana's personality, but they are not simple or undeveloped.  We see a mix of their positive and negative attributes as they relate to the story.  We see them as complete people, maybe even people we would like to see again in more stories.  

In some ways the plot was a little fantastical, but as I was reading it I was totally drawn in.  I had no doubt that Peter would believe Lana completely--I believed her completely.  And I appreciated that the story felt complete.  There is opportunity for more fun adventures and stories with Lana, but this story did not leave an unsatisfying cliff-hanger.  It definitely met my need to read something short and sweet--and a lot of fun!

Recommendations:
I am still on the lookout for more short stories and/or novellas to review (recommendations are graciously welcome!), but I highly recommend another book by this author (my review):