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):

Guest Blog: The Uncertain Morality of Lucy Brightwing

After reading Brightwing, I could not get the character of Lucy Brightwing out of my mind.  So I asked Sullivan Lee to tell me a little more about her inspiration for Lucy Brightwing.  And Sullivan Lee offered to share her thoughts in a guest blog post.  So I want to thank her for her time and helping me to better understand one of my favorite characters in this book.

I've known some pretty good bad-guys. And I've known some pretty bad good-guys. So very few of my characters will wear white or black hats. I enjoy a morally-ambiguous anti-hero far more than I do anyone who is simply good. (Though Eva Ibbotson's heroines are incredibly appealing, managing to be extremely good without being cloying.) What's more, those morally skewed characters are the ones I really believe in.

I've been wondering how to define a person's inherent nature. By their acts or thoughts or intentions or capabilities? If a person does bad things for a good cause, or does bad things to bad people, how do they rate against someone who does the same bad things for a bad cause, or to bad people? What about those who are perfectly capable of horrible acts, but never engage in them because their life never takes them in that direction? What about the good men who do nothing? Wicked people who are lazy?

Most of my characters play with this question – play not as teams play, with a clear winner, but as children play, back and forth, changing the rules as they go along, never quite coming to a definite conclusion, but collapsing in satisfied exhaustion in the end. I try to make my characters complex and morally challenging: good in their own way, even if their way isn't our way.

Lucy Brightwing is a prime example. She's a criminal by choice, not necessity, indulging in occasional operations for her uncle, the head of Seminole organized crime, a little bit for the money, but mostly for the fun. She steals gems from a shady jeweler who is fencing them for another thief. She roughs up people who made the choice to get involved with a crime syndicate in the first place. But she also comes to the aid of anyone who needs her, teaches prostitutes how to defend themselves, is loving and kind and fiercely loyal to what she loves.

For a character like Lucy Brightwing to be convincing, she needs a strong moral compass. It's just that her magnetic north is a little different than ours! Within her own ethical code, she holds true. Many of Lucy's personal beliefs come from her Tequesta heritage – her obligation to help strangers in need, her conviction that saving someone's life makes her responsible for them forever.

And of course, culturally, she comes from a tribe that long ago certainly engaged in warfare, probably human sacrifice, possibly cannibalism...so compared with that, she's certainly a white hat!