Kiss me once. Kiss me Twice. Kiss me three times (and more).

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor; with illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo

Three stories about the power of a first kiss.

In the first story, we meet Kizzy. Pretty, but not beautiful. Friendly, but not popular. She is one of those girls who yearns for love. Immigrants from the Old County, her family is full of songs, myths and superstitions from their homeland. But will knowing these stories save Kizzy from the mysterious new boy at school and his goblin fruit?

In the second story, we read the tale of Anamique, a beautiful young British woman born in India and cursed as a baby. They say if she ever speaks all those who hear her voice will die.

When James, a young soldier, finds her diary, he nearly falls in love with her without setting eyes on her. He doesn’t believe the curse is real, and, after the two meet, entreats Ana to speak to him. On the night of her birthday celebration, he proposes marriage…and Ana fulfills the curse. What must be done to undo the deathly damage of her voice?

Lastly is the tale of Esme and her mother Mab. Fourteen year old Esme has never been without her mother and their solitary life in London. But when she awakens one morning to the sounds of wolves howling and with a brown eye turned blue, her mother becomes frantic and the two rush to leave the city. Mab tells Esme bits and pieces of her story and why they are running…and what they are running from.

Mab was once the captive of a fearful race of immortal beings called Druj. These cruel human like creatures can shift into animals and take over the bodies of humans just by looking in their eyes. With the surprising help of a Druj named Mihai, Mab escaped while pregnant with Esme, and hoped that the beings of her childhood were far behind her. Now Mihai has appeared again. This time he takes her daughter.

Likes
The format of three short stories with one common thread: the magic of a first kiss.

The beautiful illustrations. Each story is told through pictures before it is told through text. I found myself looking at the drawings again and again.

Dislikes

Each story is, individually, striking. As a trio of stories in one volume, though, the third story seems so much different from the other two.

Other

I looked to see if we own any other books by this author and was very excited to see that she has written a children’s book…that is narrated by my favorite audiobook reader: Davina Porter. Yay!