The end of the world as we know it starts with the death
of a pheasant. Ross MacLeod and his family enjoy their
annual holiday trip to Scotland, not realizing that the
hunting death of the pheasant is about to trigger a
cataclysmic plague that will destroy most of the earth's
inhabitants. The infrastructure of the world is in chaos
as the basic systems are failing and various groups of
people are banding together to survive. In this new void,
magic is emerging. Who will live and who will survive as
the plague, called Doom, overtakes the world?
Wow! Nora Roberts has long been a favorite author of mine
(particularly under her J.D. Robb pseudonym) but YEAR ONE
just blows me away! Divided into four parts, YEAR ONE
takes readers through the first days of the plague in
Doom as we begin to see who our main characters will be
in this nightmarish and all too realistic scenario. The
next three sections, Escape, Survival, and Dark to Light,
take readers on a journey where magic is beginning to
divide the remaining population into segments of good and
evil.
The first section, Doom, may be one of the best written
apocalyptic scenarios I have ever read. The circumstances
Nora Roberts describes are are frightening in their
intensity, even more so because of how plausible the
scenario is. It's rare that a book haunts me for so long,
but YEAR ONE is the kind of story that stays with you
well past the last page being turned.
I don't want to give away any spoilers by focusing too
much on any particular characters, but Nora Roberts
ensures that the reader is drawn into the various lives
of the characters. We love, we cheer, and yes, we fear
for the very survival of the various characters Nora
Roberts introduces to us. My favorite character to this
point in the trilogy is Arlys Reid for her steadfast
determination to provide the public with news and
information in a suddenly scary and everchanging world.
Nora Roberts is best known for her romances and her J. D.
Robb police procedurals, but YEAR ONE is a startling and
intriguing new direction for her writing. Nora Roberts
has taken my emotions and wrenched them in so many
different directions- and this is only after the first
book in the trilogy! I can't wait to see where Nora
Roberts takes us in this new and fascinating world.
Without a doubt, YEAR ONE is the best book I've read this
year (and I've read a lot of books). If you read just one
book this year, make it YEAR ONE.
A stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times
bestselling author—an epic of hope and horror, chaos and
magic, 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, magic 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.
Debbie, you did an excellent job of capturing what this story is about. This is a different type of story for Nora Roberts but I couldn't stop reading because it has a reality to it. You did an excellent job with this review. (Helen Williams 11:43am December 26, 2017)
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