Unfortunately, this novel was not for me, but I blame myself in that regard. I am a reader who totally judges a book by its cover, which I did here, and thus found myself wildly out of my element while reading this story. What I thought was going to be a reflective, nostalgic tale about reuniting with the love of one’s life over time ended up being something quite different. I would not have selected this book had I known that it took an amusing approach to this topic. I also did not know anything about the author prior to reading this book, but have since learned that he is a comedian … so the tone of this book makes total sense once you have that little nugget of information! Come Again will appeal to a very specific type of reader, but that is not me.

I love the trope of falling in love twice, and was drawn to this synopsis right away in Come Again.
Overall it was an enjoyable read, full of wit and self discovery.

My heart ached for protagonist Kate as she grieved for her husband Luke that has passed, and found myself pulling for her as she picks up the pieces to find herself again.

* many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own

Come Again is a time travel romance set in the past and present. When the book opens, we meet Kate she is dealing with the loss of her husband of 28 years. She is in a bad place and wishes her husband's illness could have been cured or prevented. As the book moves on, she time travels back to her freshman year in college set in the early 1990's. She doesn't know how or why she is in the past but she wants to make the most of it. She knows it technically isn't right to change things from the past, but if she did would her husband still be alive?

I really thought the idea of changing the past and its effects on the future was a cool element to dive into. I also enjoyed getting to see two different sides of Kate during both times. The author could have done a better job with tying the last part of the story together as it would have made more sense to the story.

I give Come Again 3 stars. The author set up the story in a good way that made the time travel very interesting. I liked that the tackled subjects like loss, love, and grief and Kate was such a good character.

I think the characters were very unlikable in this book, and there were a ton of characters to observe and grow with in this story. I loved the premise way more than how it actually played out.

I enjoyed this story very much, although it felt like two completely different stories in one. Up until the part where she wakes up from the past, it felt like a romance novel. After that it became an action story. I enjoyed both parts, they just seemed a bit disconnected.

I am a sucker for time travel novels. Time travel fascinates me. I even wrote a short story with a similar premise to this novel a while back. So I was interested in seeing what would be in store for Kate when she revisited her first days of college in 1992.

Since I went to college in the nineties, the part with Kate's time travel experience was my favorite thing about this novel. It was fun seeing her college experience through an adult lens. I liked all the friends she re-encountered in this way, especially Kes.

The first part of the story, leading up to the time travel, felt slow and mired in British inside jokes or something along those lines. The political talk was confusing, as well. The third part of the story, after the time travel, had some interesting moments. However, I wish Kate could have stayed a bit longer in 1992 instead. One part gave me the chills though, and it made me glad I stuck with the story.

Overall, it was an interesting novel, but I think British readers will appreciate it more for all the little nuances that didn't translate well to an American reader such as myself. It's still worth checking out though!

Movie casting suggestions:
Kate (2020): Rachel Weisz
Toby (2020): Simon Pegg
Kes (2020): Joseph Fiennes
Charles (2020): Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Kate (1992): Imogen Gurney
Luke (1992): Hero Fiennes Tiffin
Amy (1992): Esme Creed-Miles
Kes (1992): Ferdia Walsh-Peelo
Toby (1992): Tayler Marshall

2 sad stars :(

It breaks my heart to rate this book so low.

I love Robert Webb. I love him as an actor, and as a person. I love what he stands for (feminist- hello!). But...oy...this book was not very good.

I don't typically read books in this genre, but I wanted to support Robert, so I decided to read it.

I think the main problem is that this book tries to do too much and ends up being so disjointed. Is it a romance novel? Time travel novel? Spy novel? Russian espionage novel?

It tries to do all of the above, but doesn't do it particularly well...

I was enjoying it up until part 3. Once part 3 hit, I honestly don't even know what to say about it.

I mostly listened to the audio-book of this and I will say, that Olivia Coleman gives this book life. She does a fantastic job and I want her to read all of my books forever and ever.

I'm so sorry for not liking this more. It guts me and I hope Robert doesn't see this (I LOVE YOU!).

A big thank you to Hachette Audio/Little, Brown and Company/NetGalley for the ARCs and wanting my honest opinion!

There were parts of this book that I really loved and then parts of this book that felt like they came out of nowhere. It was funny and sentimental throughout but towards the end there was some random action scenes that I thought felt like they came out of nowhere. I think maybe I was expecting more story line pertaining to the love story, or maybe it just felt really choppy to me. I did enjoy the story as a whole, but it didn't feel like it knew what kind of story it was meant to be.

I usually find books focusing on time travel to be too unrealistic to enjoy. However, this sweet story about a widow that suddenly finds herself back at the night where she met her husband. The author captured the beauty of the second chance she received and also the heartbreak that she endures. This is well written with likable characters.

If you knew what the future held, would you still want to follow the same path?

Think Groundhog's Day. Just when it seems like Kate has hit rock bottom, she wakes up and finds that she has a chance to redo 20+ years of her life. With great power, comes difficult decisions. Will Kate fall in love with her husband again? Will she try to save his life or let the cards fall as they are?

This sweet romance gave me the feels and brought up difficult questions. It was almost too much Groundhog's Day for me - done again and again.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this and give my honest opinion.

Come Again is a charming story by Robert Webb that follows Kate, a grieving widow whose husband Luke recently dropped dead of a brain tumor. One day she wakes up in the past- right before she’s supposed to meet Luke during their first week at University together.

Can she warn him about the tumor and save him from his fate? Or are some things just destined to happen either way?

Or what if meddling in the past causes bigger changes than Kate could ever anticipate?

Come Again explores these options and is a love story, a story of working through grief, is light, funny, and even has a car chase or two to keep things exciting.

This is a quick and light read. You’ll love the 90s nostalgia and Kate’s second chance at falling in love for the first time. I do wish the book had really gone for it and made me ugly cry like I’ve come to expect from books with time travel elements- I made it through this one with dry eyes- but it was still an enjoyable read.

Maybe more enjoyable? Not sure what it says about me that I want a book that makes me cry!


I’ve been looking forward to this book since I got to hear the author talk about it following its UK release. Well, today is the US publication date, so American readers can finally get their hands on it too!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Little, Brown, and Company, and Hachette Audio for the advance copies.

3.5⭐ - I wanted to love this book, as time travel is one of my favorite tropes. And parts of it were brilliant. Part II, where she goes back in time, was genius, and incredibly well done. Part I started off slow, and I think it would have been better if it was about 30% shorter. A large portion of Part III felt like a completely different book and came out of left field. And there's no good way to say anything concrete about the ending without spoiling things. I'll just say this. It felt like he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. I'm a huge fan of open endings, but this one made me want to say "that's just not how this works!"

An interesting mix of humor, grief, and a woman on a path of righting wrongs. I wanted more from this book. It tries, to me at least, to handle many different elements and I think that messed me up a little. The grief aspect and guilt showcases the love Kate has for her Luke, But then the concept of timetravelling, or rewriting her meeting with her husband--this concept of her sacrificing the future she's experienced all to save him was interesting. But then the part of Kate outsting a bad guy and the action of that, kind of made it feel like two different books almost at times.

I was a bit lost with this book. Partially because I'm an American reading a heavily modern British book so I missed a ton of references (but got several of the literary ones as an English major). Partially because the description and the contents don't seem to match, from my understanding of it. The plot is as solid as a time wrap story can be and plenty enjoyable, but it wasn't what I was expecting or particularly in my wheelhouse. Also, the ebook ARC layout was a mess and extremely hard to read coherently. This was marketed as a Romance, but there was hardly enough love story or plot progress based off it that it's far better marketed as Fiction or Women's Fiction, not Romance.

I really struggled with this book. The book didn't flow well. And I had a hard time connecting to the characters.

I couldn’t get into this one. I liked the premise of it, but I didn’t actually enjoy Kate’s re-living of her life starting when she is in college and first meets her husband. The dialogue felt choppy and I didn’t think the book flowed well.

Thank you for an ARC!

This book made me sort of sad. It kind of reminded me of the two lives of lidia Bird and eve drake starts over.
Kate's husband Luke, the man she loved from the moment she met him, died suddenly.
Since then she has pushed away her friend and lost her job, and everything is starting to fall apart. Like any normal person would. One day, she wakes up in the wrong room and in the wrong body. She is eighteen again but remembers everything. This is her college room in 1992 on the first day of orientation. And this is the day she meets Luke. Que my heart breaking!!!!!!! Kate knows how he died, and that he's already ill. But Luke is not the man that she lost: he's still a boy -- the annoying nineteen-year-old English student she first met. If they can fall in love again despite everything, she might just be able to save him.

I felt really sad for Kate. I think it's hard enough to lose someone but then to lose them so suddenly then wake up and see them, it made me super sad. I think this book had potential to be really really good, but there was some things missing for me. Character development. Storyline.

Still good book, but not my favorite

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Come Again.

I'm not a fan of chick lit but I will pick up any genre book with an interesting premise so I was pleased when my request was approved.

After Kate loses the love of her life, Luke, to a disease she's convinced she should have prevented, the tragedy has her contemplating suicide.

But, one time traveling night (which is never explained) allows Kate to rectify the issue: she can save Luke's life but will she fall in love with him like before?

This premise isn't new; this is the third or fourth book I've read where the heroine has a chance to go back in time to save her spouse or relive her past. But, I wanted to see if the author had an interesting take on this not original plot.

I didn't like Kate; I just can't quite put my finger on why. It might be that character development is a bit sparse in terms of who she is as an individual not tied to Luke. It's almost always been her and Luke but who is Kate?

She is one tough lady, which I did like; a martial arts expert who prides herself on not being very 'feminine.'

She's an IT manager at a company she abhors. Her boss is equally deplorable. After Luke's death, she decides to chuck it all and inadvertently gets tangled up with a very bad nasty Russian dude that leads to a high speed chase and brute thugs.

The time traveling aspect is never explained, but when Kate does end up back in college as an 18 year old, the narrative is bogged down with details and filler I couldn't get interested in. Some of the scenes with her college BFFs went on far too long.

The only time I was drawn into the story was the hilarious car chase scene as Kate evades the Russian and his thugs, Toby comes to her aid, Kate stands her ground like a badass action heroine, and it all ends in a spectacular fashion at their friend's theater. That entire sequence was worthy of a rom-com movie/book.

Was that entire sequence hard to believe? Sure. Just like a Fast and Furious movie, but for the sake of the plot, you can suspend disbelief.

The only character I did like, and he wasn't even in the book for long, was Kate's dad. He was kind, loving and incredibly supportive and the bond between father and daughter read as genuine and sincere.

Overall, the writing was good and I think this would interest some rom com/chick lit fans, but it wasn't for me except for the action scenes.

DNF. I was bored. I made it to 30% and I still felt no connection to the characters. The layout of the chapters was all over the place and not explained at all, you had to just figure out where you were as you went and what time line you were suddenly dropped into. I wanted so badly to sympathize with Kate, but I had a hard time doing so when the tragedy was played out the way it was. I had high hopes but it sadly didn’t reach close.

Is this rom com or chick lit? Maybe a little of both but I don't care because I loved this story. Kate is a totally believable character and her struggle and mourning is legit. her husband of 28 years, Luke, dies suddenly and she cannot cope. She loses her job and pushes her friends away due to her all consuming grief? Is this sounding familiar? Maybe a little but the rest of the story is unexpected because somehow a Russian plot fits in... WHAT?!

I thought this was going to continue on as a rom-com/love story but somehow it became an espionage/spy novel. It was confusing but still likeable. Don't know what to categorize this as but still a worthy read. Not a favorite but still good.

Thanks to Netgalley, Robert Webb and Back Bay Books, a division of Little, Brown and Company publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 7/14/20