Book Review: Once and Again by Rebecca Serle

Title: Once and Again
Author: Rebecca Serle
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: March 10, 2026
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Serle, the author behind “heartbreaking, redemptive, and authentic” (Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author) modern classic In Five Years, returns with an unforgettable tale of a family of women with an astonishing gift: the ability to redo one moment in their lives.

The women of the Novak family were each born with a gift: they can, just once, turn back time.

Lauren has known since she was fifteen that her mother Marcella saved Lauren’s father from a deadly car accident. Dave is alive and happy, and out on the Malibu waves. But ever since, Marcella, her power spent, has lived in fear of what she won’t be able to reverse. Her own mother, Sylvia, is her polar opposite: a free-spirited iconoclast with a glamorous past she only hints at. Lauren has spent her life between these two role models—and waiting for her own catastrophe to strike.

Then one summer, Lauren’s husband takes a job in New York and she moves back to Broad Beach Road, back into her childhood home on the shores of Malibu. Lauren looks forward to surfing with her dad again and perhaps repairing an unspoken fracture in her relationship with her mother. What she doesn’t expect is for the boy next to door to return home as well: Stone, Lauren’s first love, who broke her heart nearly a decade before.

As Lauren falls into familiar patterns, with her family and, more dangerously, Stone, she finds herself thinking about all the choices, large and small, that have brought her to this moment. And wondering, finally, if one of them should be undone.

In Once and Again, main character Lauren’s family has a secret — a superpower, of sorts. Each woman in the family is gifted with the ability to undo one event that’s already happened, but it’s a gift that’s a one-time deal. Use it, and it’s gone forever. While we might think of this as an amazing opportunity, in these women’s lives, it’s also a burden. How do you know when is the right time to use it? What if you use it, and then end up needing it even more later on?

Lauren is 37 years old, married for three years at this point to her wonderful husband Leo — but things have become fraught between them as they struggle with infertility. After multiple attempts at IVF and IUI, Leo is ready to stop trying, but Lauren is not, and the stress of the financial, physical, and psychological burdens is straining their marriage almost to the breaking point.

When Leo heads to New York for a short-term work opportunity, Lauren decides to rent out their West Hollywood home and spend the summer at the shambling Malibu bungalow where her parents and grandmother live. Back home in Malibu, Lauren reintroduces herself to the surfing and slower beach rhythms that she grew up with, while also spending time with her cool surfer dad, uptight mother, and loving, super-hip grandmother. But being there also brings up memories for Lauren of the intensity of her teen years, especially her mother’s obsessive worry over her father’s health.

Meanwhile, Lauren encounters Stone while out surfing — the man she loved and was involved with for a solid ten years, only ending the relationship when he moved away from Malibu and left her behind. Seeing Stone again brings up old feelings, even as Lauren juggles her love for Leo and how much she misses him with the pain of their current marital problems.

Lauren has an opportunity to fix something using her gift — but is this the right moment? If she uses it, will she regret it later? And what will her choice mean for the rest of the family?

Once and Again presents a unique take on the subjects of regret and second chances. There’s no explanation offered for the family’s gift, and there doesn’t need to be. It’s a magical element that just is — and if you have a hard time with this sort of magical plotline, this may not be the book for you. To be clear, there’s nothing else that’s fantasy or magic-based in the story. This is a family that’s ordinary in every way… but one.

I appreciated the insights we get from the intermittent chapters that provide Lauren’s mother’s and grandmother’s backstories, as well as the story of the first woman to have the gift. The family’s Jewish heritage features in both the gift and their ongoing lives as a lovely background element. It’s fascinating to learn more about how each woman chose to use the gift and what the ramifications were — and there’s a major twist later in the book that made me look at it in an entirely new way.

The ability to turn back time isn’t trivial and has consequences. The characters experience joy with their second chances, but also carry a unique pain: The woman who uses the gift still remembers what they’ve changed, even if no one else does, which means they may be grieving for something that no one else understands. Another fascinating element is the choice to undo everything that’s come since the event that they’re changing. How far back can or should they go? And if they change something terrible that happened, can they live with losing all the good things that happened too?

I’ve had hit or miss experiences with Rebecca Serle’s books in the past — I’ve loved two of her books, and felt less connected with two others. Once and Again belongs firmly in the “hit” category. I found it emotional, thought-provoking, and engaging, with characters to care about and a plot strongly rooted in reality even with a magical gift in the mix. Highly recommended.

For more by this author:
The Dinner List
In Five Years
One Italian Summer
Expiration Dates

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