Year One, Of Blood and Bone, The Rise of Magicks by Nora Roberts

[lightreads]

Year One, Of Blood and Bone, and The Rise of Magicks

2/5. Apocalyptic fantasy about the special girl born as disease wipes out billions. She will lead us all out of darkness using really terrible rhyming couplets and magicks (never magic, always magicks, that's how you know it's extra serious).

Nora Roberts is not good at fantasy, you guys. Parts of this are unintentionally hilarious – magic sparkly pregnancy test, anyone? – but parts are just cringey – see the poetry. Don't get me wrong, I read all of this, but it is probably relevant to note that my excellent sleeper baby is having a rough few days, snoozle-wise, so. Take that as you will.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

She's really not good at fantasy. Near-future SF, either (the In Death books, which really show up the way she's second-generation feminist and hasn't gotten past that). But I take the existence of these books as strong evidence that she hasn't hung it up and turned it all over to ghostwriters; if she had, I don't think they'd be publishing these left turns.

If/when you're ready for her standalone romantic suspense books again, I like The Search (training search and rescue dogs), The Witness (rebuilding your life while you're hiding from the mob under deep cover), and The Liar (rebuilding your life after your husband dies and leaves you with a shit-ton of debt). If I recall correctly, The Search has rape but not the other two; I'm glad to check to confirm.

[lightreads]

Yeah, the In Death books definitely have the stamp of who she was when she started them, an age ago.

When I first picked up a Roberts book and googled enough to realize she publishes, like, six books a year, I just assumed she was actually a romance collective, or multiple ghost writers, at the least. But apparently not, per further digging. Boggle. But yeah, presumably she just writes whatever the fuck she wants now and they slap a cover on it and go.

Thanks for the recs. Her catalog is really overwhelming if you're picking nearly at random.

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, I have many criticisms of her books but I still read quite a lot of them because she is good at competence porn.

If you're looking for more of the huge cast of characters type books, by the way, I can probably give you some titles.

[lightreads]

I am, yes. That's something else she's good at, throwing out a big, interesting cast where everyone is drawn just deep enough to be interesting. That's one thing good about the In Death books -- such a sprawling network of women being awesome. There's a scene in one of the later books -- no idea which one -- where eight or so of the recurring women sit around in their jammies in the middle of the night passing around someone's baby and casually solving a crime.

[kate_nepveu]

I do remember that scene, and it was good, and I also have no idea what book it was though I could probably figure it out if I put the time in.

Here are some more early-to-mid career romantic suspense standalones, of the same era as Public Secrets and that I recall as being similar in scope:

Genuine Lies, another one about a celebrity's history with a sprawling cast (I have no idea what the content notes on this are, sorry, other than that it must have some murder);

Private Scandals, about daytime TV (ditto);

Montana Sky, about three half-sisters who don't know each other and are forced to live together for a year to inherit (content note: domestic violence, definitely, possibly also some animal harm?); and

Possibly The Villa, which I don't remember but which is about two families in the wine business.

I also have fond memories of three of her family-focused series, which don't have any (significant) quasi-mystic nonsense in them:

The Irish Born Trilogy, starting with Born in Fire (content note for abusive parenting, not sure if there's anything else);

The Dream Trilogy, starting with Daring to Dream (I think has some emotional partner abuse and possibly physical as well?); and

The Chesapeake Bay series, starting with Sea Swept (content note: child abuse of multiple kinds).

Finally, if you are really, really into the minutia of major home renovations, boy, a bunch of her most recent books are for you.

[cathexys]

Wow, I'm very impressed. I made it through the first one, which we read for my SFF book club and didn't even feel interested in trying the other two. It was just so not good. (I love me some post-apocalyptic survival, but it weirdly smushed together genres and the different narrative strands didn't balance and...bah!)

(Though I'd forgotten about the sparkly pregnancy test, so I'm glad you brought that up!)