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  • Year One

  • Chronicles of The One, Book 1
  • Written by: Nora Roberts
  • Narrated by: Julia Whelan
  • Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (831 ratings)

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Year One cover art

Year One

Written by: Nora Roberts
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
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Publisher's Summary

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER (December 2017)

A stunning 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.

©2017 Nora Roberts (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

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What listeners say about Year One

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  • Overall
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Characters

I found it difficult to tell the male voices apart. All male characters had the same voice,

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent!

As always, Julia Whelan dazzles with her performance! she inhabits the male characters astonishingly! Wow!

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

It's okay...but JUST okay.

I love a good dystopian future / apocalypse novel. Sadly, this is not one.

The story has potential - a great premise. Unfortunately, it falls flat and my impression is that the author already has a dedicated audience who doesn't habitually demand very much in the way of well-crafted, complex, and emotionally-mature prose.

1. The characters are not believable, and, well, boring. They're all either totally good or totally bad. The reality of human complexity, the reason that we're an interesting species - is that we struggle with greed and selfishness, we don't always do, say, or think the right thing. There's virtually none of that internal conflict going on, with any of the characters.

2. We never get a glimpse into the world of the antagonists. What are their feelings, motives? The book would be so much better with hints of what is truly driving the conflict. Instead, it's just passive 'good characters' reacting to the aggressions of the 'bad' ones.

3. I don't think the foreshadowing of a certain character's death could possibly have been more heavy-handed. Hands up, who knew from the beginning? Everybody, right?

4. The magic is just...there. Again, it's boring. There is WAY more to be said about an entire chunk of the human race suddenly acquiring magical abilities. The struggle to come to terms with one's changed existence, the personal journeys of learning and growing that ability...why gloss over that? That should be the heart of the novel but instead the reader is expected to take it all for granted, with no exploration of its nature? LAME.

On the upside, the narrator does a great job. Even though her husky 'man' voices are kind of funny.

My summary: this author is lazy and this is a dissatisfying read. I won't be wasting any more credits on her work.

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8 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Starts strong, crashes and burns

Opening chapters appealing, nose dives thereafter. Simplistic dialogue, uninteresting characters. Narrator lacks definition between characters

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7 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Silly

I thought this was going to be a relevant book about a serious subject but when it turned into a bunch of people trying to save their lives and suddenly developing super powers like Harry Potter characters it totally lost my interest.
Silly.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling

Didn't want it to end! Don't know which were more compelling... the story or the characters!

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Nice twist to the post-apocalyptic story.

Really enjoyed this first book. Not your typical story of a virus wiping out most of the world's population. The addition of magic kicks it up a notch or two. The Narrator is really good - the kind of good that allows you to fully emerge yourself into the characters and story.

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2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Enjoyed listening

This was a pretty good book, an easy listen and classic Nora Roberts. I loved that it wasnt flooded with sex and more story. Its funny listening to this series now, after the actual pandemic. it seems fitting. I enjoyed it enough to move on to the second book. I will keep going on to the third since I want to see how this ends.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Another pandemic? Will they never end?

I had to add "Pandemic" as a bookshelf. It's likely to overtake my "apocalyptic" shelf. Admittedly, I purchased the audiobook before the start of COVID-19, but so many of the books (and films) I've read lately have seemed to be premonitions of our late difficulties.

The overview of this series reminds me strongly of "The Stand," by Stephen King: Pandemic kills most of humanity, the survivors choose Good and Evil, etc. End times stuff. As I gave up on The Stand the first time through, I am in the dark as to the winner in either case. (But I'm betting on Good. Chaotic good, in all probability.)

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Some problematics but brilliant & timely overall

The unforeseen timeliness of the novel regarding COVID-19 is striking. There is something wonderous about reading of a pandemic in which magic is also awoken after the last few years. The combination of dystopia and magical futurism is also brilliant. I did take issue with the race blindness and overall enthusiasm of policing and laws build around imperialism/racism/capitalism in the old (our) world, but it was minimal in comparison to the positives. Going to read book two now!

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