ONE MORE TIME

Author: Claire Cross ISBN: 0425211983 10/2006 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: BERKLEY SENSATION

Mild-mannered Matt Coxwell has finally decided that his long-abandoned dreams are worth fighting for. In fact, it's only after he's left his marriage that he realizes he hasn't fought this hard for anything since he fell like a ton of bricks for his wife Leslie—and he'll have his dreams with or without her. But Leslie is also having a tough time. Her job's in jeopardy, her teenage daughter has attitude to spare, and her formidable mother-in-law has moved in unexpectedly. Worse still, Matt has gone to stay with his free-spirited ex-fiancée. But before she gives Matt up, she's going to give her marriage one more chance-and maybe fall in love one more time.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

If you are looking for a great book, by a great author, that you will read in one sitting and not put down, then ONE MORE TIME is for you.

Matt Coxwell has had it with his life. For eighteen years he has settled on the life that he has, instead of going out and getting the life that he wants. Well, with the death of his career and the suicide of his father, Matt has decided to take control of his life. The only down spot? Leaving his beautiful, but inattentive wife, Leslie, and their 13-year-old daughter. After all these years, he never realized how much he felt stifled by her inability to see him for who he really is, and her take charge, organized, everything-is-perfect routine. He needs a change and she just happens to be a liability, at the moment. So, he does the one thing that he can think of that will make him happy—or so he thinks. He runs back to an old girlfriend that he hasn't seen in 20 years. But, once he gets there, can he really be happy without his Leslie?

Leslie Coxwell is known as Crabcake Coxwell, and she has worked hard to get that title. She is a take-no-prisoners history professor at her alma mater, a mother to a beautiful (but rebellious) daughter and the wife of a prominent lawyer. What could possibly be wrong with her life? Except that everything is. When her husband loses the biggest case of his career, and effectively loses his job and father as a result, he expects her support. But Leslie finds that harder to give than she thought it would be. She is human, after all, and has been waiting for years for Matt to take some of the burdens off of her back so she can cut down her hours at work. But now that dream seems unattainable. When Matt walks out the door, she realizes that all of these petty things don't mean anything without the man that she loves—and she is determined to get him back! Between her daughter, a set of silly poodles and a meddling mother-in-law, they should be able to think of something to get Matt to come home! After all, what is love if not the revelation that everything you thought you wanted, you didn't, and everything you didn't think you wanted is the one thing you can't live without.

ONE MORE TIME is a book that makes you want to reevaluate the people in your life. Most of the book I read through tears as Matt and Leslie tried to come to terms with what had happened to their marriage, and little by little they each begin to remember the little things that they loved so much about one another to begin with. It is a wistful and refreshing book that had me laughing one minute, and crying the next.

ONE MORE TIME is for every romantic I know.

Kristal Gorman