Title: Drowning Sorrows
Fandom: Once a Thief
Pairing: Vic/Mac
Categories: AU, Romance
Length: Super Epic
Warnings: The third story in the series is a light crossover with 'From Eroica With Love' but is easy to read even without working knowledge of it.

Author on LJ: n/a
Website: http://www.squidge.org/~lianne/lianne.htm

Author's Summary: [SPOILERS CONTAINED FOR THE SERIES!] For those unfamiliar with my series, Drowning Sorrows builds around the series John Woo's Once a Thief, and the growing relationship between Victor Mansfield and Mac Ramsey. At the end of the TV series, they were apparently killed in an explosion. In *my* world, they took the chance to leave the country, heading for Europe, where they made a life for themselves as security experts... and thieves.

Review:
There are very few stories in the ‘Once a Thief’ fandom that actually dwell on or even acknowledge the ending of the television series; an understandable reflex given how the series ended, which is to say, a little bit shocking and a lot unbelievable. Really, what fan is going to believe Vic and Mac's "tragic ending"? Not I and not Lianne Burwell, that's for sure.

Drowning Sorrows is, in my opinion, a fine example of taking the unbelievable aspects of what we're given and spinning it in a way that makes it not only believable but probable to boot. Starting just before the series end, Lianne builds on the tumultuous relationship between Vic and Mac, the spiraling sexual tension between the entire team, and the fact that neither is particularly happy with their lives or their ‘job’.

I’ll admit there are a few hiccups in this story, things that bother me because they aren’t how I would have grasped them, but even so, the series is well worth the read. Additionally, as a bonus for some, the last story in the series has a delightful crossover aspect between ‘Once a Thief’ and ‘From Eroica With Love’ with certain liberties taken. Don’t worry if you don’t know the source material by the way, I hadn’t even heard of Eroica the first time I read this.


Drowning Sorrows