Rebecca Serle's ONCE AND AGAIN

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Atria Books for the digital ARC of Rebecca Serle's Once and Again.

Rebecca Serle’s novels are always so lovely, featuring a central instance of magic around which the reality of the characters’ lives revolves. In her newest novel, Once and Again, the magic is a ticket that allows each new woman in the Novak family the chance to turn back time, to change their fate, just once.

For Lauren Novak, the ticket has always seemed to be both gift and burden. The chance to reverse an irreversible occurrence—as when Lauren’s mother undid the death of Lauren’s father when Lauren was fifteen—is miraculous. But it’s also a choice and, once made, it’s not available again, so knowing the right time to use the ticket and that, once used, it won’t be available again, is always on Lauren’s mind.

Lauren is married happily, to Leo, and has a strong relationship with her parents; with her grandmother, Sylvia; and particularly with her father, her kindred spirit. Her mother’s caution after having used the ticket, of knowing that she must live with anything that happens, has caused her to tread through life so carefully that she hardly lives it. Lauren’s father, on the other hand, lives life with joy, immersing himself in each day with disregard for risk or fear.

While Lauren’s husband is away on an extended work trip, she goes to stay with her parents, and finds that her former best friend and boyfriend Stone, who she has not seen for years, is staying nearby with his parents. As she is drawn back into the rhythms of her life before Leo, Lauren begins to think about the choices she has made and what they have meant for her.

While Once and Again didn’t quite reach the magical heights of her other novels for me, I could stop reading, eager to know what choices Lauren would make. I appreciated Serle’s decision to weave reflections from her mother and grandmother through Lauren’s story, revealing the different ways that they have navigated the knowledge of and the choices involved in possessing the silver ticket. I look forward to Serle’s next foray into magic.

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