Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts

4 Stars

Chronicles of the One - Book Two

The last of my six Christmas books.  It was a good year! 

This is the second of Nora's post-apocalyptic trilogy and it carries on the story of Year One, beginning thirteen years after those events.  We find out what has happened with many of our favourites from the first book and we get to meet The One - Fallon Swift - 13 year old daughter of Lana and Max, as well as catch up with Duncan and Tonia (Katie's twins and grandchildren of  the man who was basically 'patient zero' in the first book) who were just babies the last time we saw them. 

It's very much a book about the training of Fallon to take her place as the leader of her people.  We watch as she leaves her home and family to train with Mallick (a Merlin type character who I wish we'd seen more in depth) for two years.  She gains her powers and her mystical companions, the owl, the wolf and the alicorn.  We follow as she returns home and spends time with her parents and younger brothers on the family farm, readying them for the Big Battle to come.  We see her meet Duncan and Tonia and watch as they discover that they're meant to be this series' trio - Nora loves her trios of power.  And we journey with Fallon's family as they join up with the bunch from New Hope, the folks we followed and watched come together in the first book.

Along the way, there are some looks in on the New Hope settlement and a couple of quick meetings between Fallon and some of the folk.  There are a few battles and rescues.  And there are more than a few moments of discovering her powers. 

It's very much setting everything in place for the Big Battle to come in the third book and were it not for the engaging way Nora writes about her characters and the heart-touching moments of found family and shared histories that pepper the story, it would be a very boring book, I think.  It's very much a middle book. 

I enjoyed my read. As always with Nora books, I zipped merrily along, her writing style so easy to read.  There were moments of humour, moments of action and danger, moments of love and deep emotion and I will admit to being engrossed.  :)   I am very much looking forward to the culmination of the trilogy, due out at the end of the year. 

Year One by Nora Roberts

4.5 Stars

Chronicles of the One - Book 1

I absolutely loved it!  I'd been dying to read it and was thrilled when it finally went on sale last week - for a day.  I cannot justify $15.99 for a book.  Not really.  So I waited. 

This book had everything I love about post-apocalyptic type stories.  It had characters that make you want to root for them because while they're good, they're also flawed in some way.  There's magical stuff - fairies and elves and magiks returning to this world.  The main characters are of assorted ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, (Nora still needs to work on her sexualities though).  There's evil that really gives you a chill.  There are friendships, there is some romance, but this is a book about The Doom and what immediately follows.  How life goes on even in the harshest and scariest of times.  And there are dogs.  Damn, I love Nora's dogs.  :)

It was a quick read for me.  I kept picking it up whenever I had a few spare minutes, anxious to see what was going on with my peeps.  And it would make a terrific TV series, I think.  A cross between Colony and The Walking Dead and Into the Badlands. 

So, while there is a satisfying ending to this book, it's not the end of the story by a long shot and you expect that.  This is a series of I don't know how many books - Nora's usual trilogy?  I don't know.  I just know I'm anxious to read the next one and if we don't revisit some of what have become my favourite characters, I'm gonna be pissed!  *LOL*