YA spin-offs centred on kissing seems to be a thing. I read this as a tongue in cheek parody of the genre. It puts me in mind of the anthropologist whose young wife fled from his hut back to Papa, terrified by what appeared to her to be a cannibalistic vampire attack. Kissing is an unnatural and potentially dangerous pleasure. No wonder Nona is confused and bewildered.

Lawrence writes well, and moves his tale along: this is a very short story. It doesn't have the depth that he achieves in the full novels; even though we feel we know the characters quite well by now, they seem little more than sketchy ciphers in this outing. Even the Big Fight is somewhat perfunctory; one of the weaknesses of fantasy is what I think of as the Stormbringer trope: when Elric waves the big magical blade around, enemies fall like summer midges zapped by a cloud of DDT.

A light affair to keep us going until the main dish is delivered.