Three Enjoyable E-Reads

I'm on holiday and finally have some time to blog! Yay!! :) Here are my thoughts on some e-books I received from NetGalley:

Another 365 Days by KE Peyne

This is a YA novel about teenage lesbian Clem and her life told through her diary entries. I did not realise this was a sequal until I started reading this book, though maybe the "another" in the title should have rung some bells! However, enough of what happened before is mentioned in the book and it is not necessary to read 365 Days to fully enjoy its sequal.

Another 365 Days starts where 365 Days left off. Clem is very happily, too happily for it to last the whole book, together with her emo/goth girlfriend Han and they and their group of friends are starting to prepare for school exams.

I loved the humour of this book. For an adult reader Clem's comments on her parents gave some extra laughs. Though, I must say that sometimes Clem's ignorance of certain things felt a bit too much, like when she thought the Madonna picture her mother told their new neighbours had in their house was of the singer instead of Virgin Mary!

Another 365 Days covers many important issues: the joys and tribulations of love and relationships, what to do with one's life after school, and how and when -and if- to come out to friends and family.
All these issues are dealt with realistically and in a way that, I'm sure, will help teenage readers facing these same issues.

This novel was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it not only to LGBT teenagers, but any young person wanting to read a feel good novel about love and relationships.

A Barcelona Heiress by Sergio Vila-Sanjuán


Sergio Vila-Sanjuán is one of Spain's leading cultural journalists and has published several books on journalism. A Barcelona Heiress, a historical novel set in post WWI Barcelona, is his first novel. The story was inspired by real historical events and by figures from his family background.

I requested this novel believing it to be a historical detective story. I had been reading other books set in approximately the same time period and wanted to keep going with fiction set in the 1920s and 30s. That this particular novel was set in Spain and in Barcelona at that was definitely a plus for me.

However, at first I struggled with A Barcelona Heiress. I guess, in a way, this novel could be labeled a detective story, but I would not call it one. This is a story told by young lawyer and journalist Pablo Vilar. Barcelona of early 1920s is a lawless place with shootings and assassinations a plenty and with all political wings fighting for power. Through his work Vilar gets mixed up with the politics of the time.

In the beginning I struggled with the book, because it was a slow read and something completely different from what I had anticipated, but little by little Vila-Sanjuán's writing won me over. For me A Barcelona Heiress was above all a book about Barcelona. From the poor people living in the caves, to a certain heiress driving a tram during a strike to anarchists and royal visits Vila-Sanjuán painted a vivid picture of a city, a city in turmoil and in difficulty, a city very different from the Barcelona of today, but a city worth knowing to understand a little better what happened later in Spanish history. The book, in fact, includes a longish epilogue, which tells us a little about what happened to Pablo Vilar when the Spanish Civil War started in 1936.

I would recommend A Barcelona Heiress for anyone looking for a serious historical novel to read or anyone wanting to learn more about the history of Barcelona.

The Storm by Shelley Thrasher

This book goes with the one above in that it is set in almost the same time period. In this case in the late 1910s, the last years of WWI. Jacqueline, or Jac as she is most often called, Bergeron has spent some time on the frontlines in France as an ambulance driver and, even though she prefers women, she ends up marrying an airforce hero. Almost immediately Jac realises she has made a mistake. When her husband returns badly wounded and needs help with the farm his father owns, Jac promises to help in exchange of a divorce, but then in that little place in East Texas, she meets Molly.

I was looking forward to reading this story, but the first few pages made me hesitate. It felt all too much like a typical romance novel and those are really not my cup of tea. Luckily, I was proven wrong very soon. There was the romance, and very nicely written, too, but there was much more in the story than just that. I especially liked how real historical events were nicely woven into the fiction. All in all I ended liking The Storm very much.

I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a nice historical novel in general or one with a nice lesbian love story in particular.

Both Another 365 Days and The Storm count towards my personal goal to read at least 10 LGBT books in 2012.