She eventually does build relationships, but the pace might be a bit slow for you. And she really does stay central pretty much through all three books, so if you don't like her voice and her slant on events in the first, good chance you won't cotton to the rest. Book three nearly pushed me past the edge of too much tell rather than show, and I was invested.

Medair also features a woman alone (I think most of her books have that as a starting point) but yeah, she begins building relationships quicker. Some are adversarial, but there is connection, rather than that existence in the lab rat bubble. Eventually, even, she begins fighting the connection, and there are reasons--Medair is my favorite of them, I think.