Year One (Chronicles of the One, #1)

by Nora Roberts

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at BooksOfMyHeart.net.

4.5 stars

This will surprise some people and not others, I’ve never read Nora Roberts before. I have no idea why. I guess none of her books ever jumped out at me. But that changed when I read Kimberly’s review over at Caffeinated Reviewer. Her review really caught my attention and I quickly checked out my library to see if they had the audio of this book (they didn’t but were more than happy to purchase it for me, when I requested it. I love my library, they do this for me often).

I went into this book with no idea what to expect from Nora Roberts. Of course I had heard of her, I think everyone has. She is wildly successful. I knew her as mostly a contemporary romance writer. This is a genre I don’t read much in and I think that colored my image of her (I’m embarrassed to admit). I had even looked at several books in her In Death series under the name of J.D. Robb. I think the sheer volume of books in that series kept me from starting it. I will have to make an effort to prevent this from happening in the future, because this was an amazing story and I’m ashamed I waited so long to try her work.

Okay, now the story. Year One is a dystopian story. As I was listening to it, I thought it has a similar feel to Stephen King’s The Stand. There is a plague going around killing almost everyone in sight. Half the population is gone in a few weeks. Here’s where things deviate from King a lot, many seem to be immune and don’t get sick, but are now different. Some turned into fairies, elves, shifters, witches and more. Some become power hungry crazy people, bent on destruction. Some people stay human. Some of the human people become especially evil. It’s like everything else, doesn’t matter what race, religion, gender, etc, there are good people, bad people and evil people. That doesn’t change, even if you now have wings.

I really enjoyed watching all of the characters survive this plague (called the Doom). I thought their story of having to watch family and friends die was very touching. Seeing them trying to get out of areas like NYC kept me on the edge of seat. It was nice when they started to come together as a group and becoming a bit of a society, even if it is nothing like what they had before. This does not mean you should cozy up to too many of the characters. This is a dystopian novel, after all. Just because they survive the plague, doesn’t mean life is easy. People will die, and that should not be a surprise to anyone.

I think Roberts did a great job creating this new world. I love all the different powers that people develop after surviving Doom. The fact that the characters are a bit scared of their new selves seems very realistic to me. I can’t imagine how I would feel if all of a sudden, I could disappear into a tree, like the elves can in this book. Another part of realism in this book are the religious group bent on killing off all the people who have powers now (called Uncannies). Purity Warriors are the terrorist group they sound like. They only want humans to inherit the earth. And humans who stand in their way can go the way of the Uncannies.

This is the start to a great series. I can’t wait to see where she takes it from here. I highly recommend you give this series a try if you like a good dystopian fantasy with great suspense.

Narration
I can’t remember if I’ve ever listened to Julia Whelan before. I knew I recognized her name, but couldn’t put a title with it. When I looked at Audible, I saw why I recognized her name. She’s read a lot of great books, many of which have been on my TBR pile for a while. I guess I need to start picking up more books from her. She did a great job with this book. There is a large cast of characters and she nailed them. Accents, genders, she struggled with none of it.