Otherwise Occupied By Shay Savage

A Review By Wendy

4.5 Lost, Continued Adventure, The Bean Stars

Evan continues his journey back to Chicago hoping to get back into good graces with his crime family boss. While he was away doing his penitence for offing the nephew of another crime family member...others have tried to take his place... which does not sit well with him. Evan is not someone to have things "not sit well"... so he is wound tight and things start to happen because of this hyper awareness.

In this book, we learn quite a bit about Evan... the why and how damaged he is.... 

The why comes from the mental scars left by being a POW for over 18 months... by being the only survivor of his command ... and by being tortured with another captive... forced to watch this other man beg to be spared, only to be shot next to Evan....and have this moment played on in the media over and over again... and then the deepest scar was the service saying he wasn't fit anymore... left to try to understand what he was to do with the sharpshooter skills he had excelled in.....

The damage is always a hair trigger away from the surface... Evan's flashbacks and night terrors keep him off center and inflict such pain... he sometimes is physically effected. His flashbacks disrupt his sleep.... 

and then there was LIA....a brief oasis during his time in exile... 

Lia, who replays in his mind... Lia who was a comfort ... a soft home.... and who can never be....but he still wants

These are just the basics Evan deals with in this part of his story... the writing goes fast as it continues through his POV and we are there every step of the way... wondering if he will be able to skirt the law; will those after him within the crime family succeed in setting him up for the fall... and will he be able to just get his head clear ....

We are taken on a journey which presents this man who makes us root for him even while he pulls the trigger... and we will follow him anywhere because we are invested in finding out how he will get himself out of the predicament he is in at the end of this book.... 

The only way out of this for me is to continue with Otherwise Unharmed.

About Shay Savage

Shay Savage lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, two children, and a variety of household pets. She is an accomplished public speaker, and holds the rank of Distinguished Toastmaster from Toastmasters International. When not writing, she enjoys science fiction movies, and loves soccer in any and all forms. During the fall, she coaches her daughter’s soccer team. Though she currently works in the technology field, her school background is in psychology, and she brings a lot of that knowledge into the characters within her stories.