Serle’s novels, including Once and Again, operate within the subgenre of contemporary magical realism where a single speculative element serves as a catalyst for exploring complex emotional realities. Unlike high fantasy, this narrative style does not build an alternate world but instead inserts one fantastical premise into an otherwise contemporary, realistic setting. For example, in Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here, the protagonist is tasked with caring for the twin children of a United States senator afflicted with an unusual condition: They occasionally burst into flames. In Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, the narrative follows a young girl with the ability to taste emotions in the food she eats.

This technique is a hallmark of Serle’s work. In her first adult novel, The Dinner List, the protagonist finds herself at a dinner party with Audrey Hepburn, her estranged father, her favorite college professor, and her deceased ex-boyfriend. In Five Years tells the story of a woman who experiences a magical vision of a life with a different man, five years in the future, only to discover that the man is her best friend’s new boyfriend in the present. In Expiration Dates, the protagonist receives a piece of paper with the exact length of every romantic relationship as soon as she enters it. Once and Again continues this pattern, telling the story of four generations of women who each inherit a silver ticket that allows them a single opportunity to change the past.

This magical element acts as a device that forces the characters to confront real-world questions about grief, fate, and choice. This concept taps into the common psychological phenomenon of counterfactual thinking, or imagining “what if,” which is frequently explored in popular culture, such as in the 1998 film Sliding Doors, where a woman’s life diverges into two paths based on whether she catches a train. By grounding the supernatural in relatable human dilemmas, Serle uses the conventions of the genre to heighten the stakes of domestic drama, creating a form of emotional realism where magic illuminates the tangible complexities of women’s lives.