Year One
Books | Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal
4
(4.0K)
Nora Roberts
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER (December 2017)A stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts—Year One is an epic of hope and horror, chaos and magick, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the battle of their lives...It began on New Year’s Eve.The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed—and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magick rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river—or in the ones you know and love the most. As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.The end has come. The beginning comes next.
Magic
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More Details:
Author
Nora Roberts
Pages
432
Publisher
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published Date
2017-12-05
ISBN
1250122988 9781250122988
Ratings
Google: 5
Community ReviewsSee all
"Excellent!"
L B
Lori Burch
"This was REALLY good!!! I especially LOVED the lore and the world building!!!!! The descriptions of the magicks was Fascinating!!! I also really REALLY liked how Nora Roberts writes characters!!! I grew so SO attached to this cast of characters (most of them, anyways) and I can't WAIT to hear more about them!!! Especially after that ending!!! I'll definitely be starting the second one ASAP!!!!!"
"This is hands down one of the worst books I have ever read. I had high hopes for it, since I’ve never read a modern urban fantasy book before, and I like apocalyptic, dystopian and fantasy novels a lot. I also thought an author of over 200 books would be able to write a pretty compelling thriller. I now know that someone who writes an average of just over 5 books per year probably churns out a lot of books with very little value just to have them published. I should have known an author of mainly romance novels shouldn’t be trusted to write a post apocalyptic thriller (that’s not to say romance authors can’t branch out to other genres or, especially not to say that women can’t write post apocalyptic stories, but instead highlights Robert’s inexperience with the genre).<br/><br/>The story started out interestingly enough, but looking back, it was basically a cut and paste intro to to a novel that begins with a pandemic. After the pandemic, or the Doom, as the characters baffingly refer to it as, claims the lives of a good size of the world's population, the tension slams the foot on the breaks as the plot becomes paintstakingly boring. In fact, I've never read such a boring post-apocalyptic novel, or maybe even a boring book in general. That is not to say that there weren't *some* thrilling parts, but those were too rare and were too quickly wrapped up. It mostly felt like I was reading a soap opera set after an apocalypse, which, given Roberts' experience writing (probably) cheesy romance novels makes sense.<br/><br/>I did not care about the safety of any of the characters, not even the one who becomes pregnant. Not a single one of them were interesting interesting enough to warrant me pme having feelings of concern for them. They were too bland, one dimensional, and like the rest of the book, boring. None of the characters went through any meaningful character development.pplot n<br/><br/>When the novel finally revealed the villains, which only came half way through the book, they were so comically evil. Their reasons for wanting to murder the main characters were so minimal that they added nothing to the plot, save to cause tension in two parts of the story. One of their said reasons was literally "because I can!" This tension, too, was too shortlived to be exciting. Even if those parts of the book had been longer, I fear that they, too , would have been bored me to tears like the rest of the book.<br/><br/>There is something to be said for subverting the "rules" of a genre, which Roberts seemed to try to do by creating a system of magic. But even this was not fully fleshed out or thought of. , so there were no rules to be broken. The magical characters seemed to have no limit to their power, especially the evil characters. They wielded any powers that the characters needed too depending on the plot. without any foreshadowing or explanation. Oh, there's a lock on a door that the characters need to open? Guess what: magical characters can pick locks now! Oh, some of the characters need to hide from a group of bad guys in a forest? Oh, Good news! They can disguise themselves as trees *and* have super sensitive hearing so they can spot the m coming from a mile awayoming from two miles away! There were apparently different races of the magical characters too, but like the rest of the magical system, this wasn't explained. ed (and yes, they clearly had different powers, but the distinction between them wasn't defined at all). The characters simply created names for each one on the fly (faeries, witches, elves, whatever else you can think of; I'm surprised the bad guys weren't referred to as "warlocks" or something) .<br/><br/>Roberts seemed to "try" to follow the rules of post-apocalyptic nstories (againbut failed. Again, it's great when authors break these rules, but when they do so, it's supposed to be interesting. Here, it was clear that Roberts simply did not understand the unspoken rules the genre. All of the characters were trusting of one another, which I guess makes sense since there was no betrayal. At one point, the one of the groups of main characters shows up to a village (with the other gr that has no leaders, but somehow was already populated by 200 people, as well as the other group of main characters, . Did I mention that the firstis group of main characters numbered 97 strong? That surprise was foisted on readers too; the last time we saw these characters, the hero of the story ahhad just killed his comically evil brother and was now on the run. That group e group currently had about 6 people, but a time skip happened and then they showed up to the village with people in all kinds of roles that the village needed. There wSocieties as large as 200 people should have collapsed before it even got close to that number, and that would even be with a strong leader character. Characters in these types of storiePredictably enough, this village was home to a group of bigots who hated magical people. Why did it take months for them to start murdering the magical folk which would have caused the collapse? As I said, the characters were too trusting and had noapparently had no vetting process to for screening assholes from joining their settlement, which, again, predictably lead to the downd, in part, to the downfall of the vicommunity.<br/><br/>Speaking of "predictably," mostevery single plot twists could be seen from a mile away. None of them surprised me, and I pwas able to predict them several chapters ahead of them actually happening. Societal collapses and other plot twists are supposed to serve as plot devices to move the characters along , but it's hard to be investe id in a story where every plot twist is boring and almost adds nothing to the plot.<br/><br/>To wrap things up, I don't know how this book has so many good reviews. Perhaps they are from fans of Roberts' romance novels who generally steer clear of her work in other genres. I will never know if those novels are good because I will never read another of Roberts' books again. I wish I could get back the hours I spent on Year One."
Z H
Zak Hutchinson
"Loved it. Can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy."
S P
Susan Phillips
"To view my review please visit https://kittylishareviews.blogspot.com/2018/05/year-one-by-nora-roberts.html"
Alisha Rowe
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