***Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Evelyn Skye for the advanced copy! A full review will be posted closer to pub date.****

My Grade: C ⭐️⭐️⭐️. An okay read. The paranormal romantic premise was very interesting, and I loved the early scenes with soul Matias and Claire. Some of the POV's were unnecessary and I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. The epilogue was also a disappointment.

Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3 out of 5. Great steamy scenes, not too overly graphic.

The Good Stuff and the Meh Stuff:
-Wonderful chemistry between Matias and Claire!
-The Spain setting and culture was incredible! The descriptions of the locations and food are perfect!
-I loved the flashbacks showing some of the moments between the FMC and MMC.
-Dual POV was greatly appreciated. but only the ones with Matias and Claire.

I was immediately drawn to this book because I had read The Hundred Loves of Juliet by the same author. I loved that book and loved One Year Ago in Spain just as much.

It is the story of Claire, a corporate attorney in New York, and Matias,a Spanish artist. As Claire describes him, he is the chaos to her order. They meet and begin a whirlwind romance. After almost a year, they plan a trip to Spain. She has an important project at work and cancels, but he goes ahead. After some time, she gets a call at work telling her he’s been in a serious accident. Claire drops everything and goes to him. I won’t give any more away, but if you enjoy a solid, serious romance, you need to pick up this book. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy.

Wowww, I really enjoyed this! I liked the flashbacks between the present and the past. I like fantasy elements in contemporary books and this book definitely delivered!

Thank you for the review copy. This is a great love story. I learned a lot about art. People are going to enjoy this book.

This was a cute story, but not much to it. Like Hundred Loves by the same author there was a lot I just skipped. The dual timelines didn't really work or make much sense here, there wasn't really a reason for it. Cute but forgettable. :-/

Review posted to Goodreads 3/6/24

A fast-paced, heartfelt romance infused with magical realism, that unfolds as an enchanting love letter to Madrid.

One Year Ago in Spain follows the unique love story of Claire, a New York corporate lawyer, and Matías, a Spanish artist. During a visit to Madrid to see his family, Matías tragically ends up in a coma after an accident. Claire soon finds that she is the only one capable of waking him up, as she is the only one who can see and talk to his soul. However, the Matías she interacts with is one year in the past and does not remember his relationship with Claire. To awaken his physical body, they must fall in love again.

The Writing
My favorite part was the descriptions of Madrid, which were extremely detailed and captivating. The book shuffles between the present and the past, revealing aspects of the characters' relationships and internal thoughts throughout. The pacing is very fast, especially at the beginning, which I liked because it was intriguing enough to keep me reading. The writing is good, but it doesn't necessarily stand out or excel in any particular way, which I think is fine for a short and straightforward romance book.

The Characters
The book primarily tracks Claire's journey as she unravels her relationship and discovers herself along the way. It features multiple POVs, including those of Matías' family, which at times felt unnecessary, yet occasionally offered deeper insight into Matías as a character, given the main focus on Claire. I appreciated how their relationship unfolded; it felt as though I was learning about the characters throughout the book, following a rapid initial first impression.

Overall, while the book might not leave a lasting impression, I did enjoy the reading experience. It's a fairly typical romance novel, but sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

My rating: 4⭐️
Thank you for the ARC!

I wanted to give this book a proper review, however it states in the ARC not to release reviews until after publication. I will say it was a cute concept and I enjoyed the author's writing style. I was going to give it 4 stars but when I hit 93% something happened and I was like whoa ummm that's -1...maybe... then the ending happened very quickly and seemed super rushed. I would consider reading another one of Skye's books in the future.

I would say this was more of a 2.5. But on the way to 3. The book started off really strong. I loved the alternating timeline and POV but the lost soul/ghost thing was not for me.

I thought he would wake up and she would have to get him to fall in love with her again because he did not remember. This gave me Izzy and Denny vibes from Grey’s Anatomy.

Overall I did enjoy it and when I could forget he was a lost soul/ghost they were really cute together. Kind of felt like the second half of the book was a little rushed.

If you are into a vaguely paranormal romance you probably would really enjoy this.

This was a very enjoyable read overall.

Things I enjoyed:
- Claire’s exploration of Spain and the culture in Madrid
- Claire and Matias’s dynamic
- Really everything about Matias
- the entire premise was really interesting and different. a fun romance/fantasy style blend.

Things I didn’t like as much:
- POVs from anyone other than Claire and Matias
- the lack of scenes early on to show us their relationship dynamic
- Vega’s whole character (I dont usually enjoy girls hating other girls because of men)

This was an interesting book with a lot of positive qualities. I am not usually very into sad books, and this was is definitely sad during the story. However, it ends happy so that helps.

Rating: 4/5

This was a cute book with a creative premise. Claire, the straitlaced, practical, things need to be planned out and organized corporate lawyer has fallen in love with a Spanish artist, Matias, who is impulsive and disorganized, but also thoughtful and caring, whimsical, gives his everything to what/whom he cares about, and creates art that speaks to Claire’s soul. Almost a year into their relationship, they are supposed to travel to Madrid to meet his family. However, Claire is in charge of a major merger and cannot afford to take time off work, so Matias travels to Spain alone. He meets up with friends for a guys' trip but there is a terrible accident that leaves two friends dead and the other three, including Matias, in a coma. Claire rushes to Spain to be with Matias and his family. Although she sees him in the hospital hooked up to machines unconscious, she also “sees” him and interacts with him elsewhere, except for this version of Matias, it is a year earlier, and he is preparing to move to New York City and has yet to meet and fall in love with Claire. Therefore, their interactions in Madrid are as if they are just meeting. After doing some research, Claire is led to believe that Matias’ soul is untethered, and that in order to reunite his soul with his body and awaken him from the coma, she has to make his soul fall in love with her. That is both easier and harder than expected and leads to tension with Matias' family.

The story alternates between their time together in New York and how their relationship develops, and Claire’s time in Madrid trying to get Matias back. I enjoyed the descriptions of Matias artwork and the way he talked about works of art by other artists. The “Welcome to Anything You Want” art collaboration site sounds fascinating. If it really existed, it would be fun to visit.

If you are a fan of romantic movies, you probably know/remember the pottery scene in "Ghost." There is a similar art-related passionate scene in the book between Claire and Matias' "soul", and it tops the pottery scene.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. This book was super cute. I loved Claire and Matias's relationship; how opposites attracted. I loved the different points of view, even from the secondary and tertiary characters. It was a great love story, though we see more of Claire trying to get Mathias to fall back in love with her in soul form than the original relationship. Overall, I really enjoyed this. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A review copy that won’t be published for a couple of months. An easy read more fluff than I thought. It was well written. The story does float between different characters voices. Not had to follow but having knowledge of Spanish culture and language is very helpful. A book with realistic characters that jumps between NYC and Madrid. After 11 months of dating, high powered attorney Claire’s boyfriend is in a coma in a Madrid hospital. She rushes to be by his side only to be thrown into his very big and protective family. They believe Claire is the guiding light to bring their son back them. Can Claire drop her armor and find the love and faith she desperately needs.

a hopeless romantic is written perfectly in this story - i had a super easy time connecting with this story and the plot kept me engaged through the whole thing.

It is a sweet love story about Claire and Matais, two very different people who meet, fall in love, and experience tragedy. Claire is then the only one who can coax Matais back to life. It was sweet, inspiring, and hopeful.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After an accident, Matías is left in a coma in Spain while his girlfriend of one year, Claire, finally meets his family. While in his coma, Claire begins to interact with Matías’s spirit in Spain, even though he doesn’t recognize her and thinks it’s the year before they met.

I think this book had a lot of promise. The cultural aspects of art and Spain were really enticing, and I loved the dynamic of a messy artist and a by-the-book lawyer. The magical realism premise was interesting and reminded me of one of my favorites, The Dead Romantics. That being said, this book fell short for me in terms of application. There were multiple different POVs that I felt were unnecessary, when I really think it would have strengthened the love story between Claire and Matías to have only single or dual-POV. Matías’s family was compelling but I felt we didn’t see much of his family life, their home life, and their interactions with Claire as much as I’d liked. Some of the writing felt lackluster to me, like towards the end of the book after the skydiving scene, and near the beginning when the two first meet.

I really enjoyed reading Claire’s navigation of the spanish language and culture, but other than that, a lot of the book fell flat to me unfortunately.

Tropes: Magical realism, amnesia, black cat X golden retriever, coma
Spice: 1.5

Loved this romance and loved the different point of views and the timeline of falling in love. I loved that she is figuring out the relationship and remembering those moments. I love that she has someone to talk to and she meets his family in a different way and love the grandma.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing -Ballantine for the ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

I loved The Hundred Loves Of Juliet, so I was so excited to get and advanced copy of Evelyn Skye's latest book. I am happy to say that it was just as good as I expected. The premise reminded me a lot of Ashley Poston's book, The Dead Romantics, but the storyline was definitely executed differently. I think that this author does an incredible job with descriptive details and that skill lent itself well to the settings in Madrid and NYC as well as the descriptions of the main characters and their love story.

Claire is a high powered lawyer living in NYC. She has new living family and her job is her life. She meets Matias, a Spanish artist, at a gallery opening and they fall fast and hard for each other. It's very much an opposites attract relationship. About a year into their relationship, Matias goes home to Spain (Claire decides not to go last minute) and gets into a terrible accident that puts him in a coma. When Claire goes to Spain to be with him, she keeps seeing him and interacting with his spirit (almost like a ghost). Eventually she determines that he needs help making his soul go back into his body. The love story in Spain as she attempts to have him fall in love with her again and the backstory of their original love story are both beautiful. I loved every second of this book and I recommend it highly. Thanks for the opportunity to review it.

this book was pretty good! i felt like the magical or fantastical moments were fine but the characters were cool

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this arc.

This book left me wanting more. I felt the romance was rushed and didn’t give me the emotional satisfaction that I was hoping for after I read the description

3.5 Stars (rounded to 4) - A sweet story with emotional depth, but it left me wishing it was better.

I was originally drawn to this book because the premise had definite Ashley Poston, magical realism vibes (if you are a fan of The Dead Romantics or The Seven Year Slip, this should be right up your alley). I really wanted this to be a five-star read, and it has so much potential - a unique plot, great chemistry, and beautiful writing - but there were a couple of things holding it back.

My biggest issue is that the book felt like it was trying to do too much, not in terms of plot, but in terms of stylistic choices. The book bounces between the past and present, and also between six different points of view. In the end, I felt like the chapters written from the POV of Matias’s family members were unnecessary, and bogged things down. I also felt the ending was fairly abrupt. Even the epilogue was short, and not far enough out to provide any true sense of resolution.Lastly, Matias has very strong manic pixie dream guy vibes. I wish he had been portrayed as a more well rounded person.


Thanks to NetGalley for providing the advanced reader copy.