Again the Magic

Again the Magic is a historical romance by the American writer Lisa Kleypas, published in 2004. It is set in England in the nineteenth century and deals with a relationship that crosses the boundary between a landed family and the people who work for it.

Aline Marsden is nineteen and has been educated and dressed for the marriage market since childhood, which is the entire plan her family has for her. John McKenna is a servant on the estate, and the two of them have known each other since they were children. What begins as an understanding between them becomes an affair, and the novel is concerned with what happens when the household finds out: the man with no family behind him is the one who pays, and he is sent away. The book then follows both of them into the years afterwards, when McKenna has made a fortune and returns, and Aline has a household and responsibilities and a set of secrets she has kept from everyone. Kleypas uses the period's rules about class and reputation as the obstacle, and the story is about two people who have spent years believing different things about the same event.

The novel is connected to the author's later series, and it keeps to the conventions of the historical romance: a closed social world, an old injury and an argument that can only be settled by one of them admitting what really happened.