One More Time [Mass Market Paperback]

One More Time is a beautiful novel that explores how a couple, both individually and together, copes with changes in their marriage and in what they want out of life. I can safely say, this is the best book I've read in a long time.

Matt Coxwell is the first to shake up the complacent relationship after making a stand for moral rightness during a court trial, but then discovering that his wife, Leslie, had expected him to take the low road. Hurt and disillusioned, he decides to follow his heart's dream, which leads him back to his ex-fiancée, an artist whom he thinks will understand his newly realized passion for writing. The problem is, from the minute he leaves his wife, he can't stop thinking about her. He calls her just "one more time" several times. Before crossing the threshold where there's no turning back, he spends his time remembering what if felt like to fall in love and examining where the magic was lost.

Leslie Coxwell is ever dependable, ultra-polite, super-organized, and to her mind rather plain (except for her extraordinary lingerie collection). She believes that she is no match for the sexy artist, but not ready to let go of the man whom she's loved for so long, she does some soul-searching of her own. In the midst of grieving her husband's sudden departure, she's also forced to make her own ethical choices at the university where she teaches medieval history, deal with her maturing teenage daughter, and welcome her mother-in-law who unexpectedly moves in with two large poodles!

The author did a superb job of drawing these two characters. I couldn't put this book down, because I grew to care about Matt and Leslie immediately and deeply, as well as their daughter and other family members. Heck, I even liked the "girls." I wanted to step into the pages and hug them and let them know things would work out okay. I was even tempted to flip to the end to make sure that the story did, in fact, end happily. Never fear. The ending satisfies on every level.

One More Time looks honestly at real-life issues and shows us that when love is true and strong, we can shatter the outer shells of our complacency, and unravel truths unspoken, to get to the core of who we are. Rather than destroying love, we can reconstruct it with a stronger foundation. The author's exquisite use of metaphorical language, symbolism and dreams, as well as her lovely prose, lends a literary feel to the novel. It has something for everyone, and I can't recommend it more highly.

Normally, Berkley does an excellent job providing covers that are eye-catching and fit the subject and tone of the book. But there's got to be an exception to every rule, and this is it. The cover suggests chick lit or romantic comedy--that is, something humorous. And this is not a funny book. The heroine does have a thing for lingerie, but it's all bras and panties, not corsets. And there are two poodles in the book, but they're not the heroine's, and they don't attack her lingerie.

What was even more disorienting is that romantic comedy is what I usually expect from this author--granted, romantic comedy with a solid, serious base. So when I started reading, and discovered it's a book about a marriage in trouble, I was taken aback.

I'm not generally a fan of mid-life, marriage-in-trouble stories--a.k.a. women's fiction. I tend to find the characters whiny and/or shallow, all too ready to blame everything that's wrong in their lives on their unsympathetic, ratbastard husbands. But I've read--and loved--enough from Claire Cross that I trusted her enough to read with an open mind. It didn't take long. Both Matt and Leslie grabbed me from the start.

Leslie is a driven, tenured college professor. Matt is a lawyer who's just lost (deliberately, as it turns out) a big case that would have given him a lucrative partnership in his father's firm. He's shocked when he comes home triumphant, expecting Leslie to be proud of him for standing up for his principles, and instead she's disappointed in him. Then hard on the heels of that blow, his father commits suicide--timing it precisely so that Matt will find his body.

So, buoyed by the logic of quite a lot of alcohol, he decides to leave. For New Orleans, where his youngest brother is in jail--again--and needs someone to bail him out. And, not coincidentally, where the ex-girlfriend who's kept in touch all these years lives.

Meanwhile, Leslie's dealing with a new department head who's demanding a lowering of standards to make the "customers" happy, and her mother-in-law who, thanks to the machinations of the recently deceased, has been kicked out of her condo, and who's also just inherited the guardianship of a pair of very wealthy poodles. And a teenage daughter with a weight problem.

Claire Cross takes a lot of risks with this book, but it works. The scenes, especially in the beginning of the book, are short, and we jump between Leslie scenes and Matt scenes with almost dizzying rapidity. The result, however, is that I got a very clear sense of how both of them were feeling, and I felt sympathetic to them both. Longer scenes would have had the effect of bonding me to one or the other more strongly--likely whichever character's scene was first--and I'd have been less sympathetic to their "enemy."

There are also dream sequences. I've complained before about dreams in books. They're almost always unnecessary and indulgent, but these work. I'm not going to change my mind about dreams in books in general, but the whimsical/terrifying nature of Leslie's dreams, and the way they change through the book, are a nice way to show her subconscious dealing with her various issues.

The daughter is frighteningly adult for 13--mine wasn't like that for at least 2 more years--but I could buy it, especially given that she's an only child. The mother-in-law is convincing as a (mostly) recovering alcoholic, as is her love/hate relationship with her recently deceased husband. And Sharan, Matt's ex-girlfriend is wonderfully complex--the free spirit artist of the girl she was in college is still visible inside the woman she's become, but life has changed her, and Matt's arrival changes her more. It would have been so easy to make her a 2-dimensional bitch of a husband-stealer, but she's not. Even Sharan is sympathetic.

Matt and Leslie are, of course, the center of the book, and they're so real you probably know them. They've screwed up their marriage in the most believable and, sadly, common way possible: by not communicating. They still have a great sex life--when they get to it, that is. And they talk. But both of them assume that the other knows how they feel. Matt assumes Leslie knows he doesn't want to join his father's firm, and that he can't stomach the thought of defending obviously guilty and remorseless criminals. Leslie assumes that Matt knows she's tired of carrying the burden of financial stability on her shoulders. Those assumptions lead to further assumptions about how the other would react. The most telling detail about their marriage is that they don't fight.

I absolutely loved this story--though I docked it a half star because it made me moody until it was done. The lessons Leslie and Matt learned are, I believe, essential for a solid, happy, and long-lasting marriage. Don't get the wrong idea--it's not remotely preachy. It's a story about a couple who might have gone on for years, content in their assumptions and their okay marriage, until life crashed in on them. And I was so thrilled that they didn't find that the answer was to ditch the marriage and start over--with the same mistakes--with someone new. I liked these characters. I believed in these characters. I ached for them, and rejoiced for them at the end.

Leslie's life has been turned upside down after her husbands court case that was meant to define his career resulted in a guilty verdict for his client. Matt believes if there is anyone who would understand why he lost this case it would be his wife, who he believes stands for integrity. So when Leslie finds out and is devastated he realizes she may not really understand him at all, and sets out to explore the life he had before she swept into his world.

Leslie is left behind in Boston with their daughter Annette, as Matt travels back to New Orleans and into his former fiancés arms. The academic department she works for is damaging her reputation and of all things the integrity of the institution at large. Realizing how much she took Matt for granted, she becomes aware that it may take a little more than her expansive collection of lingerie to solve this predicament.

In what appears to be the third book of the Coxwell Series, readers are left examining the relationship between Leslie and Matt Cowell. Leslie's coping mechanism in her times of need can be found underneath her first layer of clothes. It is her dieting approach that enslaves her to the satiny feel of undergarments. The Emelda Marcos of lingerie, Leslie is not your typical woman those she may appear that way on the outside. With the absence of Matt she is able to rediscover herself and what a relationship truly means. Her character gives us some humor in what would appear to be a depressing period in her life. And as for Matt it is easy to relate to the feeling that things could be different if maybe a different path was chosen. Claire Cross takes a stab at examining that possibility in One More Time, and comes up with the conclusion that no one can really know what might have been, but boy is it an exciting ride.



Reviewed by Joyce



Copyright © 2006 CK2S Kwips and Kritiques. All rights reserved.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 6 reviews  4.0 out of 5 stars