Year One

Dystopian novel, heavy on the fantasy and I enjoyed it. The action does go up and down...so it's not fast paced all the way. About halfway when the smoke begins to clear, the story does slow down some..as people begin to settle but it didn't make me want to stop reading. I was invested by this point.
Some things kept me from 5 starring this. There are a lot of characters so it's told from several point of views. I didn't get confused. I got where everyone was in their story but it had several main characters and that can leave a story with one too many holes to fill. I would have also liked just a bit more explanation between the magical races that appear. Such as the differences between them etc etc.
Other than that, I am definitely looking forward to getting my hand on the next book in this trilogy.

Solid 4 stars!

This book is crazy! I felt that the book started really good, creepy, and uncomfortable. But in the middle, it was a little slow, and the end wasn't great!

Here we have a modern world that is infected by a virus that has 100% of mortality. However, there are some people that are immune and these people start to develop magical ability. Some of the people already knew that they had power and some are still developing it. Here we see a lot of characters and how they survive in this new crazy world. How they start to build the communities and how there are a lot of people who just want to do evil and destroy everything.

Nevertheless, the reading is very captivating and exciting. There are a lot of super tense moments and we just want them to end.

The best part of this book is that the writer is not afraid of giving complicated and often deadly challenges to her characters.

I was very excited to read Year One by Nora Roberts. First off, I have read close to thirty of her books. For a while there I was plowing through them. She writes great characters and exciting plots. Especially her later work. I also have read pretty much all the post-apocalyptic books I can get my hands on. Except for “The Road” which I won't touch with a ten-foot stick. 

My first observation is a positive one. The entire novel rests on an interesting, if not a slightly trite premise. World plague that decimates human the population. The thrilling thing is that the epidemic is based on lore mythology and magic. The disease is itself named “Doom,” and is made of these dark energies escaping and infecting the world. I think. Nora Roberts was a little fuzzy on it. In response to these increasing darkness and sickness infecting, a reaction in people with any spiritual and/or magical is that the latent power these people had increased exponentially. Another point I'm fuzzy on. Otherwords, some people get big woo-woo, others not so much. No idea what it is based on or why. Some people get nothing at all and remain human. Also no clue. It just is. Plot points like these that lay the foundation in novels, in my opinion, need to be rock solid. Otherwise, niggling questions remain and throw the reader's mind out of the story. 

The second observation is also a positive one. Nora Roberts knows how to write good dialog. It may be a little schmaltzy, but it flows like people talk. The dialog was well written. I may not have liked what the characters were saying, but she is damn good at writing it.  

Character-wise, it is just damn confusing. She has some well-written ones in there that are fleshed out, and some that are flat as a board (I am looking at you Eric and Allegra) and you scratch your head wondering what the hell. Why are the ones that are vapid come from out of nowhere and give so much page time? Also, the pacing and plot arcs are jarring as hell. I have never read a novel that jarred me like a car accident from one vignette to another. 

Lastly the third act of the story. I am going to speak in broad terms so as not to do any spoilers, but I spent 75 pages scratching my head. It was all so bland and wrapped up in a neat little bow. I didn't give a damn about the characters at the end. The ones that I really liked and thought were interesting got unceremoniously excised from the last act of the novel which was a weird pacing and story arc thing to do. Maybe I was just slightly miffed at that. Where are my Arlys, Fred and Jonah? She should have at least nodded her head at them and told us a little of what was going on. 

I want to be very clear here. This isn't a crap book. Nora Roberts is a master storyteller, but this isn't her best work. That's ok not everything is going to be a shining star. It is a serviceable book with highs and lows and is very readable. I will read the next book in the series to see what happens. If I had to give it a rating, I'd rate it 3 out of 5. 

There is a pandemic that sweeps over the world killing many and changing some into magical beings. The people remaining have to try to survive the new world for there are some that will kill just for the fun of it. Lana and Max leave NY to try to find safety elsewhere. As do Arliss, Fred and Katie, meeting new people and banding together to try to form new societies. There are factions against the Uncanny (new magical ability people). There are Dark Uncanny who want to take over the world.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the sequel.

The beginning of this book was amazing, and that's about it. I haven't read many dystopian books, and liked the few that I have, but this is a very stock urban fantasy novel disguising as a dystopian. The sudden shift from ‘plague' killing billions, how it effects people and how it starts to witches, fairies and elves is so jarring. Maybe, if I knew before hand it was going to be more like a fantasy novel my expectations would have been different. Instead it was disorientating discovering that 90% of it was very different from the set-up. Seriously, my copy's description had nothing about the fantasy element it was leaning more towards Sci-fi. Honestly, though I don't think I'd would have liked it much if I did before hand, would have just given it a 3. I found the writing style distracting and difficult to know who's talking at times. The main characters Jonah, Lana, Max and Arlys were very boring, bland characters. There were many other characters (good or evil) were just as bland and I already forgot about them all. I really liked the beginning and I'm disappointed it turned into a boring story with unrememberable characters.

It seems Nora Roberts decided to write a post-apocalyptic paranormal fantasy. And, she did a pretty damn good job of it. This is a pretty dark book. There is death, lots of death. And there is dark evil. Of course there is also hope (otherwise it wouldn't be much of a story) and there are some good and courageous characters. This appears to be the beginning of a series. I expect I will continue with it.

Meh...I found it predictable and the writing itself, the dialogue, a bit too soapy for my taste. And in the end, I really did not care about any of the characters.
While reading it, I kept thinking how much better Justin Cronin's The Passage (and its sequels) are. Now THAT book made me feel the terror and the anguish, the hope and the love. And it made me care.
2 1/2 ☆

Nora Roberts never fails to entertain and this latest book is no exception. I have read a few of her books that have had a pagan witchy feel to them, but this one added a dystopian element to it. It had me hooked from the very beginning and was creepy and scary at times. So if you are looking for a Nora Roberts romance novel, this isn't it. But if you enjoy a well written dystopian fantasy then you will be hooked by this one. My only question now, is how long do I have to wait for the next one?!

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!!!!!

Nora Roberts is a wonderful writer.

She is one of my favorite romance novel writers, maybe even the most favorite, and expanding her romance writing style to urban fantasy is fine by me. :-D

I like Nora Roberts' kind, gentle look on humans and human relationships. I like her characters. I like the friendships, and I like the view on women she has. It's OK to be a bad-ass fighter who likes pretty things. It's OK to be a sweet, soft, fashion loving chef, who becomes a tiger when her cubs are threatened. I feel Nora's characters are real people.

I was expecting more traditional fantasy, though, because of what Tomi Adeyemi wrote (when she accused Nora Roberts of riding on Tomi's success by naming the #2 in series “of blood and bone”, as if she stole Tomi's book title), but this is in no way related to that.
What I got was a post-apocalyptic story... well, apocalyptic story of magical people - people who can heal, sense things, people who are fairies, elves, and other things.

And then there are the a-holes, the bigoted hateful people who want to harm others just to harm them...

I am writing this 2021. Year 2 of the Pandemic. And I can't avoid relating the events of this book to what is happening now, here. How some a-holes are attacking people who look Asian in USA (and possibly elsewhere as well) because of “China virus”. Idiots.

A-holes like that make me believe in Eugenics. I can't imagine anyone would be worse off without those people. Not even themselves.

The book starts off quite strong. We're in New York, and a plague has broken out. Either you're immune to the plague, or you catch it and die. The plague somehow strengthens the ability for a small percentage of the population to use magic. Society collapses, and people flee the city.

However once the book moves onto the bit where you travel the countryside, foraging for supplies, finding shelter and more travel companions (or losing them) it kind of loses steam a bit.

Especially when you get to the too good to be true 300+ person community of New Hope. Which obviously is going to have a conflict of some kind (you let those bad guys leave, who have intimate knowledge of the town, and you don't think they're going to come back and bring more bad guys with them? Really?)

The author builds up a lot of different characters, and so when Lana abruptly leaves them all behind, I don't think that really helps the book either. Especially considering Lana by herself isn't that compelling of a character.