Review: Once and Again by Lauren Dane

Once and Again by Lauren Dane 
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Petal, Georgia #1 

This time, he plans to do it with class. Style. And more than a little groveling… Petal, Georgia, Book 1 Seven years ago, Lily Travis was only too glad to see her hometown of Petal, Georgia, in her rearview mirror. Thanks to her father running off with a twenty-year-old, though, here she is, trying to pick up the pieces. First order of business: meet with her brother’s teacher in a quest to pull his grades out of a downward spiral. Nathan Murphy is pretty much resigned to his bachelor status—until he looks up from his desk to see an all-grown-up Lily walking into his classroom. Of all the women who turned out to be totally wrong for him, she’s the only one who felt right. At least until his foolish, immature mistake drove her away. Lily has to admit that time has been more than kind to gorgeous, sexy Nathan. Except there’s no room on her full plate for another complication. Especially with a man who broke her heart once before. With a little help from his friends, Nathan has a plan to rekindle the flame. It isn’t long before they’re burning up the sheets. Winning her heart? That’s another matter.

It was a good read, not great. The book starts out interesting and keeps the same pace throughout the book. It doesn't get more complicated or interesting as you read on. Sure, the female character's life gets more complicated but it's the same old bullshit from before to after. There's just more shit and less paddles to go around. Same difference. It just gets you more frustrated as you read on because of her inability to handle the situation even though she's supposed to be portrayed as an independent, successful, young woman who's made it from a small town. She's suppose to have backbone. But then when her ex comes into the picture, someone who broke her heart to so many pieces it took years for her to get over him, and he tries to maneuver his way into her heart, she's unable to say no. Seriously? I mean, let the guy crawl and beg a little!

The story goes into why and how they broke up even though things happened when they weren't officially together (makes me feel so 7th grade to say that). I understand why she was hurt and it was a good enough reason to dump him and hell yes, it was a good enough reason to have her heart broken. But what I don't understand is there's no reasoning beyond that. Okay, he did what he did and you still can't get over it. *shrugs* Shit happens. Either move on or let it go. Hell, hash it out. But they really don't besides some simple post-coital conversation. It didn't move me, it didn't give me a breaking point where I was like "Oh, so that's why! Yes, it's fixed now!" or whatever. I will say that the nookie scenes are great. The book was good as I mentioned. Just not something that I would want to re-read nor will it make my favorites list. Beyond those frustrating points, I enjoyed the book enough to want to finish it. The pacing is a bit fast for me probably due to it being a short book, but yeah. If you're interested, read it. If you don't have it, put it on hold and grab the books you are interested in first. This can wait.