Once and Again by Rebecca Serle

A 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 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 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 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.

Kindle Edition, 256

Expected publication March 10, 2026

 by Atria Books

3/5 stars

Once and Again follows three generations of women, grandmother, mother and daughter, who share a rare and mysterious gift: each is granted a single do over — it’s a second chance that can only be used once.

The premise is compelling as the story slowly reveals unknown pasts layered with twists, scandal, and heartache.  Though blood related they have different personalities and once their stories are shared their characteristics make a whole lot of sense.  A quick read coming in at 256 pages, but it was enough with some depth and the emotion that it needed.

Overall Once and Again is a thought provoking story of family, mistakes and healing.

My thanks to Atria Books for a digital arc (via Netgalley) in exchange for a honest review.