thank you Del Rey and NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book.

this book received a 4.5 stars from me, I wish it had a little bit more romance scenes but that's okay. I loved seeing Claire sticking by Matias's side even when it was unclear how the situation would turn out. She was willing to stop everything that she was doing in NYC because she loved him and wanted to see him get better. Claire didn't fly back to NYC until she knew he was awake from his coma, even if his family was upset with her. The ending nearly made me cry, I'm glad that Matias woke up at the end from his coma.

One Year Ago in Spain-a standalone

By Evelyn Skye-read The Hundred Loves of Juliet and gave it 4⭐

📅Publication date 7-30-24, Read 7-29-24

📄Format: E-book 336 pgs.

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine | Del Rey for this ARC 🧡! I voluntarily give an honest review and all opinions expressed are my own.

🌎Setting: NY and Spain

Genre: Contemporary Women's Fic, Fantasy Romance

Tropes: magical realism, opposites attract, 2nd chance romance, what-if, amnesia/coma, multi POVs, dual timelines, time travel, flashbacks, journal entries

💭Summary: Claire Walker is a high powered NY attorney on the verge of making partner when she meets and falls in love with Matias de Leon. Opposites in every way, Claire is a type A personality and Matias is a care-free creative. When she finds an engagement ring, she has second thoughts about their relationship. Matias goes to Madrid to visit his family alone, Claire working towards her promotion. He has a terrible accident and is in a coma. Claire comes to his bedside with his family grieving, and she discovers she can see and talk to his soul. He doesn't remember her or their relationship, so she vows to make him fall in love with her again to save him.


🤔My Thoughts: I loved the premise which was like The Hundred Loves of Juliet with the amnesia and time travel. I was also reminded of the movie Just Like Heaven where Claire is the only one who can see or talk to him while he's in a coma. The descriptions of Spanish art and food made me want to visit one day. The supernatural element added to the second chance romance where Claire and Matias rediscovered each other.

Rating: 4/5⭐⭐⭐⭐

Magical Realism at its finest; add a little timey-wimey whimsy, surreal paintings, and quintessential opposites attract couple, and you’ve got the perfect book for fans of The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston.

Type A workaholic Claire never planned to fall madly in love with spontaneous artist Matías, but eleven months later, she’s about to let their love story slip away. When Claire discovers an engagement ring in Matías’ sock drawer, she knows he’ll be popping the question on their upcoming trip to Spain to meet Matías’ family. But Claire needs more time to decide if she’s ready to say yes, so she’s relieved that she has the perfect excuse to skip the trip; her legal career is riding on a huge international merger, and she needs to stay back to orchestrate it. But Claire soon finds herself rushing to Matias’ bedside after a speedboating accident puts him in a coma. Can Claire wake him, or is it too little, too late?

Watching logical Claire grapple with magic and trying to problem-solve her way around dating her comatose boyfriend’s astral projection from one year ago was a little nerve-wracking but also full of wit and humor. And thank goodness because between Matías’ coma, his overbearing and grief-stricken family, and his supernaturally stunning ex, we needed some laughs. Evelyn Skye does a masterful job of balancing this story's grief, humor, and love. This magical, romantic multi-pov split timeline story will keep you enthralled as Claire and Matías rediscover their love, themselves, and all Spain has to offer.

Tropes include opposites attract, magical realism, time travel, coma/amnesia, language barriers, fish out of water, 2nd chances, family relations, flashbacks, multi-pov, and dual timeline.

I loved this book.
Claire has to convince her boyfriend's soul back into his body after he is involved in a deadly boating accident so that he will come back from his coma.
There is a perfect amount of paranormal to the story, the love is hot and heavy but also so honest and lovely, Claire and Matias are a new dream couple to want to hang out with, and most of the book is set in a small town in Spain.
For people who loved "The Seven Year Slip", you HAVE to read this as well. Same vibes and the little bit of magic/paranormal to it just is the icing on the cake.
There is good drama, no miscommunication, a great self awareness, and art and food that sounds so dreamy that you think you are truly experiencing it with them.
I would recommend this book to everyone, one of the best summer reads I have done this year.

Side note though, there is a decent amount of Spanish in the book and not always a translation or context clues to figure out what it means so I had to use the translation tool on my kindle a good bit. That was slightly annoying.

A great read, the story of Claire and Matias who meet in New York. But when Matias has a serious in his native Spain, will Claire take the chance to really open up to him? I liked how the story was told and hoped everything would work out for them.

One Year Ago in Spain by Evelyn Skye was fun, sweet, and so entertaining!
The magical realism, second chances and characters just sweep you up and hold you captive till the very end.
This fun and exciting romance really took me on a ride. And one I hated to see end.
This story was so riveting and unique, that I'm still thinking about it.
It was realistic and relatable. I absolutely loved everything about it

Thank You NetGalley and Random House, Ballantine & Del Rey for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

First I’d like to say thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of Evelyn skye’s upcoming book in exchange for an honest review .

I throughly enjoyed this book. It was very well written and I felt the plot was unique. I really felt for the Fmc as she struggles with her insecurities and I adored the couple. I wish it had a little more at the end .However, overall I would give the book a 4 star . I would recommend this to any friends or family looking for a cute read about love conquering all. ❤️

I wanted to love this book as I love magical realism but this just wasn't the book for me. I wanted more from the main characters and to me they just weren't fully developed. I wish there was more at the end of the book also. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

Read if you like:
✨ Magical Realism
🥈 Second Chances-ish
⏳ Dual Timeline
📝 Journal Entries
🌥️ Just Like Heaven

I absolutely love magical realism mixed with romance, and this one definitely gave vibes similar to The Dead Romantics in some ways, so if you enjoyed that book, I would recommend checking this one out as it may be a new favorite!

The story centers around Claire who is focused on her career and success and her partner of nearly a year Matias who is an artist from Spain.

When a trip is booked for Claire to meet his family. She bails due to work obligations after finding an engagement ring in Matias’ things prior to the trip.

The last time she didn’t go with love ones as promised something bad happened, and that happens again as Matias ends up in a coma in Spain that leads Claire to come meet his family and end up in Spain regardless of her initial plans, to not go to Spain with him.

As Claire and Matias’ spirit then begin to connect I really enjoyed this magical realism part of the plot!

Overall, I think for many that are dipping their toes into magical realism with their romances I think this story could be a good jumping off point!

Thank you to Dell from my eARC, physical ARC, and to PRHA for my gifted audiobook in exchange for my review!

One Year Ago in Spain is definitely a cliche... but it is one that keeps getting done because it works. I liked that Claire was a Type A career woman who was struggling to keep her job afloat in the face of a horrific tragedy. As well all know, not every employer is supportive, nor to friends and family always understand the importance of a job or career. We are all too quick to pass judgement. I wanted more romance between Claire and Matias early on, as I found it a little difficult to buy their relationship once things fast forwarded to his accident. I did like the setting and Claire's internal struggles more than the overall romance.

3.5 stars rounded up for enjoyment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Del Rey for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I thought this book was charming with a great premise. I was hooked in the first chapter because it didn’t start like most romance books. Here they immediately fall in love. Which I think was my biggest problem with the book. Even though I enjoyed it, I didn’t feel the tension or push and pull that I like to feel in romance. Everything seemed too fast and rushed. So the characters being in love was almost not believable. And I felt like the characters were a bit too on the surface. I’m also not sure about the purpose of the added POV chapters that weren’t of the main characters. Still a fun and unexpected read.

It wasn't’ bad but it just honestly wasn’t for me. I didn’t get to finish because I honestly just didn’t mind not knowing what happens at the end.

This is the love story of Claire and Matias, opposites who met and almost lost one another when he falls into a coma after an accident in Spain. It's told in dual time lines and by multiple POVs and it's heavy on the magical realism as Claire sits at his bedside talking to his soul. While they might not seem as well rounded as individuals as they could be, wait for them to develop as a couple. And though it's light, there's also a dose of grief as Claire struggles initially. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

What a lovely read! Magical realism in Romance is *chefs kiss* for me and Skye wrote novel that is up there with Ashley Poston (and that is saying something in my eyes).

The Good: The imagery. I loved hearing about Madrid. I also could feel the love and tension between the main characters (even though one is in a coma!). I loved the different points of view throughout the novel. I know some did not enjoy them and found them distracting, but I felt they helped round out the main characters and added to the story. I loved the arc of the FMC, Claire, but wish we could have seen more of Matias.

The Bad: The pacing on this book seemed off. Some parts took me a while to read through, or I found myself skimming, because there was just too much detail. Other parts seemed rushed. I also felt a bit more time could have been spent on character development. The MC were almost there but I needed just a bit more.

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

This is like the movie Just Like Heaven, but the characters already knew each other. There are multiple POVs throughout the story but all told from 3rd person. That threw me off a bit. But I liked the concept. It was a cute, easy read. This would make a great movie.

This book has such a unique plot. I thought the dual timeline really worked here. It allowed the reader to watch Claire and Matias’s romance grow and also added some dimension to the plot that wouldn’t have been there with a single timeline. I liked the dual POV, also, but thought that it was a bit odd that there were also chapters from the POV of supporting characters. There was one entire chapter from Matias’s mother’s POV that I skipped after realizing it would add nothing at all to the story.

I think the magical realism/paranormal element was handled very well. There was just enough explanation to hint at believability and I ate it up. I don’t believe in that sort of thing but I was completely drawn into this book.

I thought the pace was a bit slow and wish that there had been more action. A lot of it was rehashing pretty random dates. I also became very frustrated with Claire’s behavior when she was in Spain.

Overall, an interesting take on a romance. This author continues to surprise me in good ways and I look forward to reading more of her work.

I am a magical realism lover and when I read the summary for this book I was so excited. The concept of this story was so interesting and had so much potential. I also found the descriptive writing to be beautiful, and I loved how sweetly Matias’ character loved Claire. Reading his point of view about how they fell in love was my favorite part of this.

I found the different point of views to be too much, as there were multiple random additional povs throughout the story. This caused a lot of different people and different timelines to be followed, making the storyline a bit overwhelming.

Claire’s character had great character development. I felt so frustrated with her, which was evidently the point of her growth, but seeing her let herself fully give herself and her love for Matias’ was special.

I just felt like this concept had so much potential, and it fell a little flat with me. The descriptive writing was great but it felt like there were so many side details and anecdotes that were taking away from the main story. I found myself getting more into it in the middle of the story, but it fell off for me after that again unfortunately. The whole thing felt very dragged out, while the end felt really rushed. I felt like there was so much extra description throughout it but also holes that I felt like something was missing.

This is definitely still a fun read for my magical realism lovers and hopeless romantics looking for a different storyline!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read this arc!

I was swept up in this beautiful romance from the beginning and flew through the pages. Magical realism, second chances and the power of true love. Great read!

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (rounded up)

Claire Walker seems to be having the perfect life .. she is the lead attorney on an important merger and headed for a partnership with a top corporate law firm in Manhattan. She is in a relationship with a free spirited artist from Spain, Matías de León. But a wrench is about to be thrown into Claire’s life when a tragedy strikes leaving her boyfriend in a comma and close to death. In a split decision Claire leaves for Spain to be by his side. The next eight days will make Claire take a serious look at her expectation on life. Will her being by Matías’s side help him find his will to live? How will Windsor & Black feel about Claire’s sudden departure during very critical time?

One Year Ago in Spain takes a look at two very different people – one that seems very set in her ways, needs and wants an orderly and neat life; the other loves his chaotic artistic lifestyle and welcome new adventure. Will Claire and Matías have a second chance at making this relationship work?

I was intrigued when I read the brief summary of this story, while I enjoy the story it was just lacking something. I felt the pacing and character development was off, lack of chemistry between Claire and Matías plus I felt no connection to Claire’s character. The ending also seemed a little rushed.

Thank you, Evelyn Skye, Random House Publishing/Del Ray and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

What you’ll find:
✨ A touch of magical realism
✨ Shifting perspectives
✨ A relationship between a driven lawyer and a carefree artist
✨ Scenes set in Madrid and New York
✨ Conversations about art and mouth-watering food

Content warnings:
💔 Themes of a fatal accident, coma, and death

Overall, I gave this book a 3.5/5 because it fell a bit short for me. While the premise of One Year Ago in Spain had the potential to be a cute and light read, the narrative felt too straightforward and lacked the build-up and character development that typically draw me into a story. This absence made it challenging to feel any real chemistry or tension between the characters. The little moments of budding romance between Matías and Claire were charming, but these scenes ended abruptly, leaving no lingering feelings for the characters. Just as I started to sense a spark of connection, the book concluded.

The inclusion of multiple POVs outside of the main couple felt like an odd choice and did little to enhance the central story. These additional perspectives seemed unnecessary and distracted from the focus on Matías and Claire.

While I appreciate a good opposites-attract trope, Claire’s fussiness and rules that bordered on OCD annoyed me. However, I did enjoy the vivid descriptions of both the art and the food in the book. They were particularly engaging and made me hungry!

While the story’s premise is enjoyable, the lack of emotional attachment to the characters was disappointing. A stronger connection could have made the story much more engaging and impactful.

Thanks to @randomhouse - Ballantine | Del Rey and @netgalley for the #ARC of One Year Ago in Spain by @evelyn_skye.