Rebecca Serle’s new novel, ONCE AND AGAIN, is a magical realism–infused beach read that packs a surprising emotional punch.

Once upon a time, Lauren Novak’s great-grandmother, Irina, was just a girl of seven, born to a cobbler working in Odessa, Ukraine. In the 1920s, the Jewish population is beginning to decline, and Irina watches cautiously as her family misses out on the wealth and stability that many enjoyed previously and succumbs to the anti-Jewish pogroms that have accompanied the Russian Civil War. When a local curmudgeon cannot pay for her shoe delivery in cash, she gifts Irina with a silver ticket in a wooden box. The ticket can allow its holder to turn back time, but only once. Upon its use, it disappears until a new daughter is born and the box refills.

Lauren first learns of the silver ticket when she is 15. Her mother, Marcella, tells her that her father, Dave, has just died in a car accident. But she has used her one wish to bring him back. Now, Marcella tells Lauren that she, too, has a ticket, but the cost of using it is not small. After saving Dave, Marcella has been plagued by anxiety and grief --- the former at knowing that her one wish is up, and she will have to weather whatever comes next; the latter at the memory of mourning her husband alone.

Lauren’s grandmother, Sylvia, was also granted one wish, and though she must have used it --- she boasts an impressive wealth, plenty of glamorous stories, and a “death can’t catch you if you don’t stop moving” attitude, even at 93 --- she refuses to tell her daughter and granddaughter what she did with it. The “how,” she claims, is far less important than the fact that they are all alive and have each other, safely ensconced in their Malibu beach bungalow.

"Perfect for fans of Sally Koslow and Jamie Brenner, ONCE AND AGAIN is a thoughtful, deep and deceptively nuanced trek to the beaches of Malibu.... Book clubs and those in need of a soul boost will devour this sweet, satisfying novel."

Since learning about her father’s death and return to life, Lauren has kept the details of her one wish secret, even from her beloved husband, Leo. Together for four years and married for three, they began trying to have children even before they were married. But at 37, the strain is starting to show. She cannot remember the last time they had sex for fun, not tied to an ovulation or fertility timer. And on top of that, their funds are seriously low thanks to multiple rounds of IVF. As of late, Leo has started to question why they’re trying so hard, turning the most intimate part of their marriage into a calendar and draining their finances. But for Lauren, a woman who has always kept the “what if” close at hand, this is a fight she is not willing to give up on just yet.

When we meet Lauren, Leo has just secured an exciting, lucrative gig as a director of photography in Manhattan. She will be living with her parents for the summer as they rent out their own home in an attempt to rebuild their accounts after their IVF trials. Ever since learning about her father’s demise --- and return to the living --- Lauren struggles with being alone and the uncertainty that comes with having your partner out of sight. So in theory, staying with her family should be just what the doctor ordered, and in many ways it is. But none of that accounts for the peculiar distance between Lauren and Marcella, or between Marcella and Sylvia. Despite their gift, which should grant them a closeness and a new appreciation of life, the Novak women have never been able to build and maintain the closeness of a matrilineal line.

However, the Novaks' bungalow does hide a different closeness: Stone Morrow, Lauren’s first love --- “the one that got away” --- and the only boy who ever saw Lauren and her family at their most vulnerable. Back home to care for his dying stepmother, Stone is a welcome reprieve from the stifling closeness of her family’s home, her mother’s anxiety and her grandmother’s aloofness. But he is also a threat. As a woman who has spent her whole adult life thinking about choices and what it means to make them, Lauren cannot help but wonder what it means that she is back in the stratosphere of the one person who has provided the rubric for every man she has dated since, especially as her own marriage strains under the weight of infertility.

With her one wish still at large, Lauren must wonder if she has a chance to use it now, or if she should hold out for the big “what if.” All the while, she’s attempting to understand the complex woman-to-woman relationships in her family and navigating Leo's distance, both physical and metaphorical. Grounding her narrative in gorgeous descriptions of Malibu and its ocean --- believe me, you can taste the salt air the way she writes it --- Rebecca Serle pens a thoughtful meditation on love, motherhood and second chances.

To read Serle’s books is to grow alongside her. If you’ve experienced a major milestone, particularly in matters of the heart, chances are that Serle has written the perfect guidebook for it. In ONCE AND AGAIN, she turns from finding love to keeping love and reckoning with the fact that every choice means not choosing something else. But what really shines here are her descriptions of fertility, pregnancy and motherhood. Writing from the perspectives of both Lauren and Marcella, Serle unpacks every unspeakable thought a mother has --- from delighting in Lauren's growth to fearing her maturity and Marcella's own inevitable discarding. Thrusting three generations of Novak women together, she is able to fully indulge in her keen emotional analysis, unpacking the myriad hopes, dreams and wishes of three wildly different women who are each (though they might argue otherwise) informed by one another.

Those looking for a strong, fully realized magic system may be disappointed, but to focus on the magic of the wish is to miss the point. Serle instead creates magic in her character dynamics, expertly tracing the minutiae of family relationships and transforming every story, every like or dislike, and every character-building moment from context to lived experience. Just as she did in THE DINNER LIST, she uses magic not to explore the fantasy behind it, but to ask what real humans --- bumbling, precious and yearning --- will do when given the option to hope or wonder.

Perfect for fans of Sally Koslow and Jamie Brenner, ONCE AND AGAIN is a thoughtful, deep and deceptively nuanced trek to the beaches of Malibu. Readers are greeted not just by golden sand and salty air, but by the spellbinding Novak women and their impossible choices. Book clubs and those in need of a soul boost will devour this sweet, satisfying novel.