For anyone who may be unaware, and it seems unlikely but I suppose it’s possible, Nora Roberts is a prolific romance novelist who also writes supernatural romantic thrillers as J. D. Robb, and other things under assorted other pseudonyms. It was probably only a matter of time before she got on board the Apocalypse train, given that the genre is among the most popular of present times — I think we all just want to be assured that now matter how bad things seem, things could yet be worse. Certainly, my friend Lara, who gave me this for Christmas last year, says she hates the world a little less every time she reads a book like this.
What I didn’t expect was that “a book like this” would involve fairies.
Told through multiple perspectives, the end of the world leads to the usual rioting, rape and rationing, as well as sending good people on the run because of dark magics and a messiah. You know. The usual.
For all my extensive reading in pretty much every one of her frequent genres, I have never actually read a Nora Roberts book before this. There is no denying her talent, of course — as millions of readers, and billions of dollars, will attest — and she certainly has a way with a compelling cliffhanger. Whether I am invested enough in her vision of TEOTWAWKI to rush out and buy the sequel I am as yet unsure, but I am certainly going to start reading more of her books.
Luckily, I have collected more than a few of them over the years.
SCORECARD
TBR DAY 170: Year One (Chronicles of the One #1) by Nora Roberts
GENRE: Post-Apocalypse, Paranormal Thriller
PUBLISHED: 2017
TIME ON THE TBR: 8 months.
PURCHASED FROM: It was a gift.
KEEP: Maybe?
I have slowly been working my way through the Temeraire series, following my enjoyment of 
The title of this limited run both attracted and concerned me, speaking as it does of some major fourth-wall-breaking, and that can be very hit and miss. On the one hand, there is Deadpool, King of the Fourth Wall, and on the other there is the 90s She-Hulk title, which was basically just MAD Magazine, but even more obvious and juvenile.
So there’s a lot to make one very uncomfortable in this book. There is way too much detailed child pornography in it, for a start. Of course, the apparent acceptance of it in society is supposed to signify the slow decay of civilization, is a precursor to corporation-fueled destruction, and also shows us that our protagonist is both a creep of the first order and as unreliable narrator as it is possible to meet, but still. The answer to “how much detailed child pornography in a book is too much” is “any”, so I really had to struggle to read on past the first appearance of such evil. 
Calling this an installment in the Miss Buncle series is like saying those Avonlea books without Anne in them are a part of her life story. This does take place in the same town as the last two — Wandlebury — and there are a few incidental cameos from those we already know, but for the most part this story could just as well take place in Anytown UK during World War II.
War has come to the land, which means that the former Miss Barbara Buncle — now one of the Mrs. Abbotts of the title — and the former Miss Jeronina Cobbe — the other one, and who fortunately goes by Jerry — are helping to hold down the fort, alongside their Wandlebury neighbours. Not too much sacrifice is required on the part of our Barbara, really, except that she is raising two little hellions that you kind of wish would get kidnapped and held to ransom, as did Sarah’s son in Miss Buncle’s Book. 
Sequels can be hard to pull off, and certainly sequels in which an unexpected romance has been consummated in general satisfaction, and now the happy couple can be seen going about their daily lives in connubial bliss, can be even harder to pull off.
Oh, I loved this so much! As I had no doubt I would. I am only sorry it took me so long to read this book — it was recommended to me a year ago, and I bought not only it but its sequels, and several other books by the same author besides, on the recommendation of my friend Jen, who is an aficionado of excellent fiction (and who shares, if not exceeds, my love for Georgette Heyer), and so I knew I was in safe hands when she ordered me, immediately, to delve into D. E. Stevenson’s canon.
Well, that was harrowing.
Marvel’s Inhumans are a band of superpowered and/or otherworldly heroes and/or villains who were transformed into their post-human state by exposure to the Terrigen Mist, a gene-altering compound that brings out their latent abilities if they are descendants of visiting aliens. Or something. I know — or think I know — all of this only because of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the endlessly annoying network television show with an endlessly annoying title to type, because somehow this band of secretive yet interfering metahumans had not really registered with me in all my years of comic book reading.