Year One took Nora Roberts on a completely different path in her writing. This is basically a post-apocalyptic book. The tagline is: When the world ends, Year One begins.
As a longtime fan of Roberts' writing I was nervous about this book. I don't generally care for end-of-the-world, disaster type books. They're scary! So I put off reading this book - for months! It came out December 5, 2017. I usually buy books by Nora Roberts the day they come out and start reading them immediately. Not so with this one.
I finally decided it was time to read this book and oh my gosh, it is GREAT! Yes, there are seriously scary parts throughout the book - I'm 80% through the book and the scary is a huge part of the story. However, this book is also about people (and the Magickal) who survived what is called The Doom and are building new lives. I told my husband I never should have doubted Nora Roberts' masterful ability to write the human condition! I'm almost done with this book and will be counting down the days until the next book in this series - Of Blood and Bone - comes out! Which is 99 days since it comes out on December 4, 2018!
In the meantime, if you're interested in reading Year One here is the description:
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.
I am currently reading River's End by Nora Roberts.It was originally published on March 1, 1999 but somehow I've never read it. It is the current Book of the Month on the 
