I have rarely had a problem with how to begin a review, sometimes I have trouble thinking of the right words or to find something I really liked, but never had a book left me feeling so much that the right words just will not come out. I believe I will have to quote author of YEAR ONE, Nora Roberts, on this one: "It begins with a global crisis, a pandemic that wipes away much of the population and opens a door to magicks."

The MacLeod family spent the holidays in Scotland, something they had done many times on the family farm with cousins. Nothing seemed different but everything changed, by the time they returned home both, Angie and Ross MacLeod were deathly ill. By the end of the first week of the new year, the World Health Organization had declared an avian flu pandemic, with no real idea of where or how it had begun. By the second week, "Doom" had taken more than 10 million, with the governments and world as it had been, now collapsing. Escape and survival are all that is on the minds of those not hit by the disease.

Author Nora Roberts is known for her varied and intriguing books from romance, romantic suspense, magic-filled tomes and (my all-time favorite) In Death series (via the pseudonym J.D. Robb) brings an even diverse offering in this one. It is, in my opinion, frightening and realistic subject matter that brings to mind what it must have been like for those hit by the "Spanish Flu" of 1918 only with an an even deeper toll as magic is added to the mix and evil is released.

YEAR ONE is divided into four parts: Doom, Escape, Survival, and Dark to Light. Which gives you the essence of the book. It starts out with the disease, survivors escaping and learning to live in the new terrible world now filled with magic ... both good and evil.

I felt for those who died as well as those who survived for they are now the hunted, first for their immunity and later for those who developed magic, out of fear. As with any post-apocalyptic and apocalyptic storyline there is heart to touching moments, betrayal, power-hungry people who prey on the frightened but there is always hope and love to give strength. There are many characters involved in this fast paced, epic endeavor but the main character in this the storyline is Lana and her unborn baby who is marked as the future savior of the new world. You have to read this book to see the determination and strength this woman has... having faced love, fear, betrayal and danger ... then again love.

As with any trilogy, the wait for the next offering seems insurmountable, but with this one I can't wait to see where Ms. Roberts can possibly take these characters and how much more her readers can survive.

Book Summary

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.

The end has come. The beginning comes next.