Kiss and Tell By: Michele Jaffe Star Rating: Sensuality Rating:

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Synopsis

Even though she's a senior at an elite boarding school, Miranda Kiss is trying to just be an ordinary girl, but that's difficult to do for someone who has superpowers. Thus far, she's been pretty successful at keeping her powers under wraps, but it's hard not to blow her cover when she picks up a client at the airport in her part-time job as a chauffeur. The client turns out to be Sibby Cumean, an annoying teenage girl just a few years younger than Miranda who can't seem to pass by a boy without wanting to kiss him. When she drops Sibby off at the address she was given, Miranda's super-senses tell her something isn't quite right, and she soon discovers that the people there want to do Sibby harm. She rescues the other girl and takes her to her own prom in a effort to keep Sibby safe, but when the bad guys show up, too, will Miranda's powers be enough to save them both?

Review

"Kiss and Tell" is a YA paranormal fantasy novella that appears to be a stand-alone story. It tells the tale of Miranda Kiss, a senior at an elite boarding school, who was sent there by her foster parents after the deaths of her biological parents. When she's not in class, she can be found either competing with a local roller-derby team or at her part-time job chauffeuring important people around town. But in her spare time, she secretly uses her superpowers to foil crimes. In her capacity as a driver, she's sent to the airport to pick up one Sibby Cumean, who turns out to be an annoying fourteen-year-old girl with a penchant for kissing every boy she sees. When Miranda drops her off at the address she was given, she senses something is amiss and rescues Sibby from people who seem bent on causing her harm. In an effort to keep Sibby safe and entertained until the girl can meet up with people she can trust, Miranda takes her to her own school's prom, but trouble follows them there.

"Kiss and Tell" is a fast-paced and fairly entertaining story that held my attention pretty well, but by the end, I found I had more questions than answers. It feels like this should be the beginning of a series, but I couldn't find any more stories about these characters. I liked and related to Miranda quite well as a kind of awkward loner who has vulnerabilities and hang-ups that make her fond of self-help books. Her superpowers made her all the more intriguing to me. But there was so much more I wanted to know about her such as what happened to her parents. She also alludes to having a sister, but never says what happened to her either. How did Miranda get her superpowers? One of the bad guys says that some people believe she's like Wonder Woman and there's apparently a bounty on her head. What's that all about? We eventually get a vague idea of who Sibby really is, but I felt like there was a lot more to explore with her character as well. And what about Will, the guy Miranda really likes, but who she thinks doesn't like her? They finally start talking, but before they even get a chance to kiss, the bad guys swoop in. At least the final chapter shows them setting up a date, but I wanted to know what happened after that. If "Kiss and Tell" had been a prequel novella to a larger series, I would have given it a higher rating. However, as is, I felt I had to knock it down a bit to account for all the many tantalizing threads that were left dangling, apparently never to be resolved. Otherwise, "Kiss and Tell" was a decent read that made me care about the characters, but it's precisely because I cared that I found the lack of a more solid resolution to the many questions I had rather frustrating. "Kiss and Tell" can be found in the anthology Prom Nights from Hell.

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