Bumping my review up a star after our deep read in the #ButDoTheyBang Discord. While I still find McKenna to be a man baby, the work the author does to showcase Aline & McKenna versus Shaw & Livia is so fascinating, as is the deep allusions and connection to Wuthering Heights. I felt more apologetic to McKenna this second read, and feel he and Livia are a good match for each other, even if they display toxic behavior to my modern, nonfictional lens.

I participated in a Twitter read-a-long for Again the Magic, you can see all the tweets by search #ATMLKRead!

My Kleypas reading history is spotty. Her work is not part of my formative romance reading history and thus I find myself struggling with her earlier work, especially the male "heroes." I always enjoy my reading experience though as she is a master of angst and language.

This is more a review/synopsis and is QUITE spoilery so stop here if you don't want to know.

CW: medical trauma, death of parents/loved ones (off page), addiction (drinking), mention of miscarriage

Aline and McKenna have grown up together, but conveniently don't have those pesky sibling feelings for each other, but instead have all the throbbing hormone pants feelings that come with young adulthood. They know their class difference means they can never be, and McKenna appears to be the realist, pursuing other girls and having sex with them while poor Aline pines and tries to tempt him into kissing her and more.

They are of course caught, but Aline ensures McKenna will have some sort of future by promising to send him away so harshly he'll never return. Her father is a JERK. McKenna immediately believes Aline was using him for a play thing and leaves in anger. Aline is distraught, and wastes away until a kitchen accident burns her legs. She eventually recovers but will forever bear the scars.

Cue 12 years later and Aline is still living at home but her brother is now in charge of the estate, her father is dead. A group of Americans is coming to stay and she is in charge of making sure they are comfortable and entertained. There is some sort of train business because is this a Kleypas novel without train business, and ope turns out McKenna is now a very rich man and is back for REVENGE.

He will bone Aline and leave her behind him, finally free of her ghost, because he absolutely is NOT still in love with her. No way, despite clinging to her hanky for 12 years.

Aline is on to his intent, but hey, maybe let's just go for it as long as we do it in the dark so he'll never know about MY LEGS. She's very concerned about her scars and thus has never married. She may also marry her best friend, a peer who is also gay. I'm not sure how I feel about this rep. She also uses this friend to make McKenna jealous.

SO much angst and so much good banter between these two. Both make terrible choices. There's a ton of YOU WILL BE MINE I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY chest thumping.

While all this is going on, we also get a delicious secondary romance between Livia, Aline's sister who was ruined after it was found out she was having sex with her fiancee. He died in a tragic accident and she miscarried their baby. So sad. She's also been in mourning for years but now has met an intriguing American who inspires her to seek pleasure and happiness. Shaw has his own demons, and is an alcoholic, which is a big problem. I appreciate how Kleypas handled his addiction. Livia was not a magic lover, who cured all his ills. She in fact tells him she loves him, but she cannot be the reason he tries to get sober. There love story deserved a whole book IMO.

Of course Aline and McKenna have a big break, again Livia breaks McKenna's heart, he starts to leave and she runs after him. Not enough grovel for me. And then the book basically ends. We do get to see that Livia and Shaw get their HEA after spending months and months apart so Shaw can work on his addiction.

So overall a highly entertaining read, but I'm not swooning over McKenna anytime soon! Shaw's my guy in this story.