This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by PamG. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romance Novella category.

Here is PamG's review:

This year is my year to review stuff that I am mostly unfamiliar with. I tried to choose titles that no one else had yet signed up for (all but one), and lest you think me puffing off my virtue, I’ll admit that just about every slot for historical anything was filled before I even saw the list. But—what the hey—I’m up for a challenge!

“One Little Kiss” is a novella that takes place in an airport with two protagonists whose flights are cancelled due to snow. Leighton is a violinist and a cancer survivor who is flying to Dublin to participate in a prestigious music festival. She is trying her wings after years of being sheltered by her family and has accepted a position as second chair in a well-known orchestra once she graduates from college. When her twin brother sends Jonas, his best friend, to rescue her from the hardship of camping in an airport, she is perhaps understandably irritated. Complicating her reaction is the fact that she’s been in love with Jonas since they met and shared a kiss four years previously and, more recently, a one-night stand on New Year’s Eve.

Jonas is equally hot for Leighton, but (of course) he’s made a promise to her brother not to mess with her. He has miserable stuff going on in his own life that has disrupted all his plans for the future and made him somehow unworthy of Leighton. To avoid spoilers, I will not get more specific than to say that the novella is awash in Lifetime movie angst.

I did not enjoy this novella at all, so expect a bit of snarkiness ahead. I’m sure that the dominant tropes are undoubtedly someone’s crack, but they aren’t mine. No, that’s not even fair. One of the major problems for me is that several of these tropes are familiar from books I really enjoyed, and consequently they were perhaps foredoomed to be disappointing in this story. Also in the interest of fairness, I have to say that the writing is competent and lively, and that the author did a decent job with the novella format. By limiting the story’s time frame (overnight) and the number of characters (basically just 2 and a bit), Covington avoided straining the novella form with a plethora of unnecessary story lines. Because the friendship developed before the story opens, the evolution of Leighton and Jonas’s relationship stays clear and focused. Covington neatly avoids the rushed feeling that comes from having to tie up several plot threads in a limited allotment of words.

My fundamental problem with “One Little Kiss” is that it bored me. I believe the style is somewhat characteristic of New Adult (though I’m not sure what that label even means). At any rate, it’s laden with trendy yet stale slang, written in alternating his ‘n’ hers first person present tense voices, distinguishable from each other only by the cussing that Jonas does. I thought as I started chapter two: F-bomb in first sentence; must be the guy.

Also, once the narrative hints at an issue, the details are pretty predictable, which kind of flattens out the conflict and creates pretty limp tension. The hero and heroine’s strongest emotion seems to be a shared obsession with how hot the other is. Aside from that, every other sentence seems to start with I, I, I. This effect is partly due to the severely limited cast of characters, but I found it annoying nonetheless.

Leighton and Jonas were not hate-able, but they didn’t have a huge depth of character either. Not having peripheral human beings to interact with limited their ability to demonstrate much individuality. Leighton’s over-protective brother is the entire supporting cast of characters, and he only appears on the backside of a phone conversation. Even a conversation with a clerk or a cab driver can illustrate personality without occupying a whole lot of space. Also, without the leavening of other characters, the heaviness of this couple’s angst is kind of overwhelming in the short format. Health angst + lust = not my cuppa tea.

Given my other problems with this story, it’s unsurprising that I found the HEA somewhat improbable. Leighton and Jonas make life-altering decisions in a very short span of time. I give the author credit for not having Leighton sacrifice her ambitions, but considering what the couple is dealing with, a few years of mutual lusty pants and a couple of one-nighters hardly seems sufficient to build a life on. But—who knows—they could always get lucky.

For me, this novella is a straight C grade—not great, not awful, just not to my taste. Although, I’ve read some New Adult stuff (I think) that I loved, I’m not really the target demographic for the genre. Hopefully other readers will be able to sift through my biases to make a sound decision regarding “One Little Kiss.”