Year One by Nora Roberts is far from the typical romances I’ve come to expect of the author I turn to de-stress after a long, trying day. Year One is a dark, post-apocalyptic world where more than half of the world’s population is decimated by a pandemic, governments are a thing of the past and dark and evil magick, which surfaces in much of the population is used to maintain law and order.

Year One may have been Robert’s attempt to capitalize on Netflix’s Bird Box popularity for which this story bears many similarities, but I don’t think it’s what her romance fans expect of her. I turn to Roberts’s novels for romance and love, not for a post-apocalyptic, supernatural, intense story. Because of this, I couldn’t connect with the story and its many, many, many characters, and found reading it a chore. In fact, I didn’t finish it.

I’m not a quitter, and I do love and envy Robert’s pictorial and expressive writing. I will give it another read when I’m more into an apocalyptic read type of mood.

FUN FACT: Nora Roberts began writing on a whim and it now takes her around 45 days to write a novel.

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F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton is the sixth book of her Alphabet Series centered on Kinsey Millhone a tenacious detective based in California during the 1980s.

In this installment of the series, Kinsey travels from her home of Santa Teresa to Floral Beach so anticipate a change of scenery and a collection of new characters, which is a welcomed change.

As the story goes, the murder of seventeen-year-old Jean Timberlake shocks the small community of Floral Beach, a tiny beachside town. Bailey Fowler who confessed to the crime escapes shortly after being imprisoned, and over a decade later is recaptured and sent to prison again. This time Fowler’s father hires Kinsey to prove his son’s innocence. In her search for the truth, Kinsey finds that everyone in town is hiding a secret and all seem to have a motive for killing young Jean.

Grafton takes us on a wild ride by skillfully outlining the motives of the various residents of Floral Beach for killing Timberlake and keeps us guessing who the actual murderer is until the end.

A solid read and entertaining to the very end.

FUN FACT: In an episode of The Sopranos, Edie Falco’s character, Carmela Soprano, is seen reading Grafton’s G is for Gumshoe.

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