Rebecca Serle’s latest novel Once and Again hits shelves March 10, 2026—and E! News can exclusively reveal the book’s cover and first chapter. 

Once and again, Rebecca Serle is bringing the magic to your TBR list.

Nearly two years to the date after releasing Expiration Dates, the best-selling author is back with her last sweeping examination of life and love in Once and Again, set to hit bookstores March 10, 2026.  And E! News can exclusively debut the book’s cover as well as a glimpse at Once and Again’s first chapter. As for what to expect?

The Expiration Dates author continues that exploration in Once and Again, this time with a new twist, begging the question: if you have just one chance at a do-over, would you take it?

Because in protagonist Lauren Novak’s family, each woman has a gift that allows them to turn back time—just once. 

It’s a gift Lauren’s mother used after her dad was in a fatal car accident.

“But ever since,” as the synopsis notes, “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.” 

Her husband 3000 miles across the country, Lauren retreats to her childhood home in Malibu, but beyond the complicated dynamics within her family is another wrinkle: She reunites with her first love, Stone, after a decade apart. 

“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,” the synopsis notes. “And wondering, finally, if one of them should be undone.’

Keep reading to check out the first chapter of Once and Again, out March 10, 2026, and for more newly released books…

Why wait? Pre-order your copy of Once and Again so you can read as soon as it’s released.

I landed, he texts me, and I feel the ground underneath my feet once again. It’s 4:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, both too late and too early, but in the four years we’ve been together—three of them married—I’ve never been able to sleep while Leo is in the air.

For the past hour I’ve been standing in our dark kitchen, refreshing the screen of my cell phone and bathing the room in harsh blue light.

Exhale.

I pull my robe more tightly around me. I love this bungalow—built in 1958, updated in 2010; it’s charming and bright. Big windows, a sliver of a garden, walking distance to Melrose Place. But there’s no functional heat.

When I first moved in, six and a half years ago, the walls were green and burnt orange and the light fixtures were all brass, but over time I painted the walls white, wallpapered the bathroom, regrouted the kitchen, and decorated the space with a colorful mix of Rose Bowl Flea Market finds and Crate & Barrel sales. It’s charming, and organized. Despite Leo’s piles of things, I am not someone who finds clutter to be cheerful.

Go back to bed, Lauren, he writes, and I smile.

I love you.

I feel my shoulders slacken. The whirling in my stomach settles to a casual rinse cycle. He’s fine.

When I was fifteen years old, my father died in a car crash. He was driving down Mulholland in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, slightly before rush hour. He was not speeding. A teen driver in the oncoming lane was on his cell phone. Both drivers died on impact.

I flip on the electric kettle and scoop some dark roast into the pot before my eye settles on the mail stacked on our counter. Leo forgot to go through it before he left. I fan out the letters. Insurance forms for Leo, some Ralphs coupons, and a thank-you note from my friend Delia for her baby shower. We got her a bottle warmer. I run my hand over the embossed stork and then deposit the paper into the trash can.

Leo is traveling to interview for a new job. He’s a DP, or director of photography. He started as a lamp operator on film sets and then got his (small) break when his old mentor from college asked him to be DP on an indie project last summer. He loved it. Today he’s flying out to meet Grayson Baldacci, the wildly prolific television writer, about his new show, Big Guys, an office drama that will shoot in New York. If Leo gets this, it’ll change the game for him. A steady gig, a regular income.

I’ve been an accountant for the past decade, and before that I did bookkeeping for individual clients, two of whom I still help on the side. I work at a small firm with only two other CPAs. We mostly handle retired clients living on a fixed income. The work isn’t particularly glamorous, but I enjoy the steadiness of it, the reliability. And I like the business of helping people budget their lives. The obvious: It gives me great pleasure to avoid catastrophe both personally, and professionally, even if professionally I’m not following my passion.

Leo is another story. He lights up when he talks about film. Whenever we watch a movie together, he wants to run me through the cinematographer’s shot list—why they chose a crane there or a wide here. I zone out, mostly, but I love how he sees the world: like a canvas waiting to be painted or captured or told. In Leo’s universe, it’s all already there; he needs the right lens.

Water in hand, I walk over to the couch. The sunset image hanging behind it was painted by my grandmother Sylvia. It’s the view at our house in Malibu—the same one I grew up in.

Did he land?

My mother. We share the same history.

Yes.

Go back to sleep.

I imagine her right now, in her frayed Ralph Lauren robe, looking out at the silver water. She isn’t an early riser, my mom. That was always Dad.

My cat, Pea, stretches into the room. She looks at me wearily—This again?—and then abruptly leaves. She showed up on my doorstep four years ago, half a day before the biggest rainstorm Los Angeles had ever seen. I found her scratching at the glass. She was barely six weeks old, had all kinds of health issues, and no tag.

I’d never had an animal before, I wasn’t even sure if I should let her inside, but Leo insisted. “The rain will kill her, Lauren,” he said. “We’re bringing her in.”

She explored every nook and cranny of our bungalow and then promptly fell asleep on the rug. I knew before I went to bed that night that she was ours.

I start to smell the beans, and look down to see my cell phone vibrating on the counter. Leo is calling.

“You’re not sleeping,” he says.

I can always tell what kind of mood he’s in by his voice. Leo is gregarious by nature—far more social than I am—but when it comes to our relationship, he’s soft-spoken and gentle. Right now he seems chipper. But then again, it’s almost 8:00 a.m. where he is. I imagine him rolling off the flight in his sweatpants and black T-shirt, his backpack on his back, duffel in hand, a hoodie slung over his shoulder. Some bagel dust down his front. He’ll have slept, too. Leo can sleep anywhere.

“You’re the one calling,” I say.

Truth be told, I’m surprised. Leo is never on his phone. At home, that makes him a great husband—super present, rarely distracted. But when he’s gone, he’s often hard to get ahold of. When we first started dating I was convinced he wasn’t interested because I wouldn’t hear from him for days, sometimes weeks. Then he’d resurface, pick me up at my house, and look at me in a way that let me know he never forgot.

“True. Guess what? The guy next to me had never been on a plane before.”

“Really?”

“Makes you marvel at the miracle of modern travel. I felt like a child again.”

The coffeepot sputters and gurgles its final stream.

“How was your night?” he asks me.

I didn’t sleep much—tracking his flight, watching for any type of storm warning—but I don’t want to tell him that. Leo knows me, but he knows also what I tell him. We have been married only three years. There are still things to learn.

“I ordered from Pizzana with Tracy. She left around eleven. Then I did a little work.”

“What did you get?”

“The white pizza. And that chopped salad with the mushrooms.”

Leo hates mushrooms.

“Just remember if you watch Summer House without me, I’ll get an alert.”

“Not if I stream it from my phone.”

He lowers his voice to a growl. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Leo and I met at the Beach Cove a private members-only club known for its outdated furniture and WASP culture. Neither one of us belonged—Leo insists they still don’t admit Jewish people— but we were both there for Fourth of July fireworks, invited by two separate people—my friend Tracy and his friend Luke.

The thing I remember about Leo was how out of place he looked. He was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, an eyeline grabber among the belted shorts and popped polos. I was surprised they let him in. And I also remember that I was attracted to him immediately. His towering frame (six foot four and two hundred and sixty pounds). His jet-black hair. And his slight English accent.

He was born in Boston, raised until ten in London, and then went to boarding school in West Virginia. He’s a nomad, comfortable on the road. And though he’s seven years older than me, there’s something so playful about him you’d swear he was younger. He also looks it.

Pea sneezes in the other room.

“I miss you,” I say.

“Already?”

I take down a mug from the cabinet and pour a cup of coffee. I like it extra hot and black. I hold it between my palms. Outside I see a small bit of light start to creep through the night sky.

“I like it better when you’re here.”

Leo’s tone softens. “I know, baby. Me, too.” He clears his throat. “What time is the clinic?”

“Nine,” I say. I don’t want to tell him about how I needed to go in yesterday, because they weren’t sure of my progesterone levels.

Leo and I have been trying to have a baby since before we were married. We knew we wanted a family, and wanted one together, and after we got serious we started trying right away. Two fertility clinics and two years later we learned the reason it wasn’t happening: premature ovarian failure, which is a fancy way of saying my fertility is about the same as someone a decade older. We started to see Dr. Frankel at Reproductive Los Angeles after we got bad news at California Reproductive Center, hoping that maybe another doctor would give us better news. But we’ve done six IUIs and four egg retrievals, and we’ve never ended up with a single embryo, and I’ve never been pregnant. This month we did another Hail Mary IUI, just because.

“OK. Keep me posted,” he says. I can hear the slight wilt in his voice, the way it flattens out whenever we talk about this.

Leo is as supportive as he can be, but fertility is a language he does not speak. No matter how many times we hear the terms low ovarian reserve, high FSH, low AMH, they are just obscure data points to him. They aren’t real, not exactly. Not the way they are to me.

And he’s tired, I know he is. “How much more of this are we supposed to put ourselves through?” He keeps asking me. I don’t know how to tell him that for me there is no answer. For me the answer is still As much as it takes to get our baby.

“I will,” I say. I want to change the subject. “And then I thought maybe I’d go out to the beach tonight.”

I can hear Leo’s smile through the phone. “They’ll love that.”

Just then I hear a rapping at the door. I startle and some coffee spills. I took over and see him waving through the glass.

“Jesus,” I say.

“What?”

“Guess.”

I lift my hand to wave and mime that I’m coming to open the door, but he’s already pulling out his keys.

“It’s not even five a.m.!” Leo says. “OK, I’ll let you go. I love you. Tell your dad he was wrong about the Lakers, and I owe him.”

 From the forthcoming book ONCE AND AGAIN by Rebecca Serle, to be published by Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Printed by permission.

It’s a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan

Release: May 27
Monaghan always delivers engaging, breezy beach reads and her latest is no different. Budding movie exec Jane and cinematographer Dan have little in common—aside from their love of this really great script. But as the film can only get the made with a superstar attached, namely the pop sensation from Jane’s child star days, the duo follows him to the music festival in Dan’s hometown to convince him to say yes. Though, the more time Jane and Dan spend together, the more sparks begin to fly…

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Release: June 3
Reid is taking readers back to the ‘80s—although unlike the glamorous worlds of Malibu and sports, she’s turning her sights out of this world. After being selected to be among the first women to go to space, Jane Goodwin joins her cohort of six through the grueling astronaut training at NASA, where Jane finds herself opening up to new experiences like never before—until an accident changes everything.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

Release: June 3
At just 10 years old, Louisa is found on the beach, her father seemingly disappeared into the sea. With a nonlinear timeline spanning decades and told through the perspective of Louisa and her parents, this novel, expanded from the New Yorker story of the same name, is a captivating examination of family and belonging.

King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby

Release: June 10
There’s a reason Cosby is a must-read for so many thriller fans: his southern noir novels suck you in from the first page. In his latest, the prodigal son returns home after his father’s car accident. Only he soon learns his brother’s involvement with local gangsters is what has left their dad’s life in the balance—and the danger is far from over.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

Release: June 10
Take another journey through time and immortality with the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue novelist with an epic story following a trio of women vampires unlocking their power, finding freedom and seeking revenge. 

Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston

Release: June 10
A writer’s block-stricken songwriter finds her only burst of inspiration has come through a telepathic connection she has with a musician who is very much the opposite of everything she wants in her life. But in this magical rom-com, as they seek to break their connection by finishing the song they learn maybe there was a reason they were brought together.

Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell

Release: June 24
How many red flags is too many? That is exactly the question in Jewell’s latest as it follows Ash, a 20-something mourning the shocking murder of her dad, only for Nick, a man seemingly from his past to enter their lives and start romancing her mom. Meanwhile, Martha is balancing life as a mom of three, her flower shop and a husband often away on business. However, both Ash and Martha have a nagging suspicion about the men in their lives and their connection leads to a twisted discovery. 

The Compound by Ashling Rawle

Release: June 24
A hot new bombshell has entered the bookshelf. In Rawle’s gripping debut, Lily wakes up on a remote island as one of 20 contestants on a Love Island-like show, competing for amenities and special prizes. However, as the competition heats up, the stakes are raised and surviving may just be the ultimate prize.

The View From Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani

Release: July 8
Reeling from a family tragedy, newly-divorced Jess flees her New Jersey hometown to Italy to find herself—and the truth about her family. It’s a heartfelt family saga that’ll have you itching for an invite to the Barattas’ Sunday dinner.

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Release: July 15
The Mexican Gothic novelist is back with another spooky read as grad student Minerva digs into the life of a horror writer, learning that her most iconic work is based on a true story and involves being haunted by a force that not only still walks the halls of campus but is eerily reminiscent of the tales that shaped Minerva’s childhood.

You Belong Here by Megan Miranda

Release: July 29
Decades after a tragedy left two locals dead and her roommate on the run, Beckett Bowery returns to her college alma mater when her daughter enrolls. But now that she’s back, secrets from her past are coming back to haunt her—and as this is a Miranda book, it features plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Release: August 26
Prepare to descend into the depths of Hell—as that’s exactly what two graduate students must do, at a possibly great cost, to save their recently-deceased mentor. The Yellowface author continues to prove her dark academia bona fides with this trip into the inferno.

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