Book Review: Year One by Nora Roberts

12/21/2017

SYNOPSIS

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.

Synopsis from Chapters.Indigo.ca

PERSONAL REVIEW

I'm taking a brief turn away from Young Adult fiction to discuss "Year One" by Nora Roberts, a contemporary romance. I have been a huge fan of Nora Roberts' for years now and couldn't have been more thrilled with this new series by her. I honestly had no idea how this was going to turn out; she's been pretty loyal to a specific way of writing romance/suspense novels and "The One" sounded much more dystopian than anything she's ever written.

What I Loved:

Dystopian (and Magical) Future Explained: So often in dystopian novels we are dropped into the future without much information about what has caused this future to happen. In this case, we are actually there to witness the beginning of this new future and have to deal with some very brutal moments of what happens when some of humanity allow themselves to lose their morality. I loved the way that Roberts created this new world out of our current one, and even while adding in magical elements, she made me feel like the series of events leading to this future really make sense.
So Many Different Characters and Storylines: Roberts' best books have always been the ones where there are two or more different storylines happening throughout and she knocked it out of the park again in this book. There are so many different relationships, magical developments, and romances that slowly develop over this novel and leave me incredibly excited for what the rest of the series will bring. I won't leave any spoilers, but I will say that Roberts did not shy away from killing important characters, which was really surprising. Not all characters we make a connection with will live through the events in the book; this is a very different turn for Roberts, who tended to save all the "heroes" in the past. It will be interested to see what happens next with these relationships...
Magical and Realistic at the Same Time: I'm always impressed with how Roberts brings magic so seamlessly into her contemporary novels and makes audiences believe that this could easily be a part of our world. In this case, she writes it as magic becoming more available -- even changing some humans into other magical beings -- because of the rift that has caused the sickness to grow. Her dystopian future seems no more unreal then something like the Hunger Games taking place in our future. Flat out: she hooked me.

If it's not clear at this point, I throughly enjoyed this novel and cannot wait for the next book in the trilogy to be released. I'm absolutely enthralled by this new tone that Roberts is taking in this series and cannot wait to see how she picks up these storylines in the next book.

FINAL RATING: 5/5