[Lith]

You could always start off your recap scene with a line like... "it's happened before..." so that the reader knows it's not there simply for a recap. Or is it? The scene has to have another reason to live besides giving the reader information they already know.

I prefer no recap at all, or a short recap prologue, rather than trying to work in a paragraph here and there of recap (as with Harry Potter). Some authors can deliver necessary information so subtley that both the new reader and the continuing reader scarcely notice they're picking up the bones of the old events in the new context. But I've no idea exactly how they do it, so all I can say is try different things until something works.