Pestilence (The Four Horsemen, 1)

Great book! Binged it in a couple days. Loved the references to religion, something most authors tend to ignore. Pestilence was a great character, would have loved to hear his views though. Sara was more annoying than i would have liked haha! The back and forth about liking him was slightly irritating. But all in all, LOVED it. Sad the paperback copies are not the real people versions anymore. I hugely dislike cartoon covers and object covers. No stars down though, as I doubt that was the authors decision. I ended up finding some on a book selling site for not too expensive, thank goodness.

I didn’t expect much when I started this series, but they were free, and I’ve enjoyed other books by the author, so I figured I’d give them a shot. I’m so glad I did! They definitely take the enemies to lovers fantasy genre to the next level. Obviously Pestilence, War, Famine and Death are the ultimate enemies, but the author got us to care about them and also pulled in a dash of deeply philosophical thinking. Each character was matched with the perfect badass heroine and the couples served up the SPICE! The way she took this idea and turned it into a sweeping story was pretty impressive!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. So much so, that I devoured it in a day!

I am so glad that I did not let the low reviews and negative reviews sway me on reading this book. Reading this book, I get that it is not for everyone. But there are worse Dark Romances out there. And you can guess those ones.

Sarah's character is strong-willed. She has to battle between her feelings for Pestilence, as he ravages the land with his plague. This book starts out in the most brutal of ways for Sara. It was almost too much for me to keep reading. At first, I was dumbfounded that Pestilence did what he did to her. Again, he is the 1st Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Before he meets Sara, he ever only knows death and destruction. He was sent to carry out his purpose.

I am trying to get my thoughts in order...... This book has left my brain in a state of udder mess.

What he did to Sara was punishment for what she did to him. The battle that she fought and ultimately lost because she went through with it. That sealed her fate. When he called out for help and she didn't, that sealed her fate. And it was a brutal start too for her.

Sara had to endure and witness what Pestilence did up close and personal. Yes, she had to watch, men, women, and children die. This book took a toll on my emotions. She stayed with the ones who passed away. She cared for them, while witnessing and not being able to save them. It was brutal to read.

Near the end. Between chapters 31 and 34. I had to stop reading after each chapter. It was heartbreaking. Not just for the older couple in these chapters. But for the forgiveness that this couple bestows upon Pestilence. The wisdom from the older women to Sara about her feelings that were growing for Pestilence.

And for Pestilence. His character was the embodiment of a Horsemen of Apocalypse. You read Sara’s POV and witness his growth. How he wars with things that Sara says and shows him. He fought with himself. He allowed himself to feel these human emotions, he allowed Sara to show him things that allowed him to know humanity. It witnessed all the bad that the world has to offer, he also finally got to witness the good. When you are created for purpose, that purpose is all you know. Pestilence growth for and to humanity was strong and it was really breathtaking to read. As well as extremely emotional. Especially when he thought he was going to lose Sara. Holly smokes, that part about ripped my heart out. At that point his bond with Sara was strong.

All of my reviews for books take this same pro/con format and there are SPOILERS, so be warned. Here we go....

PRO: Original take on the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' trope. The concept that these are Old Testament ANGELS who have been set on a path of destruction by the Christian Yahweh (God) is forgotten by a lot of readers out there, who think of angels as "Touched By An Angel" soft and sweet. Not so. Laura T. reminds us of this continually in the story, so we won't make the mistake of believing these creatures are humans with souls. They are not. They are harbingers of the end of times, merciless and driven to one purpose that is theirs alone (re: spreading disease, famine, war, and death to innocent and guilty alike). CON: World-building was very ethno- and religio-centric. Writer assumes the audience is well-versed in Christian mythology, particularly the Apocrypha/Revelations portions of that religion's holy book (we live in a global society now, and many readers come from different cultures and religious backgrounds but can read English, too, and so a little context would have helped them to connect better with the story premise, I believe). Furthermore, it is not stated at the beginning of the book how/why the end has come to the earth, only that it has. This felt like a cheat. A simple one page Prologue would have simplified the matter for us and fixed a lot of these problems with the novel.

PRO: Heroine was no push-over; she was feisty and compassionate at her core. I believed this characterization of her merely in the mentioning of her career choice, pre-Apocalypse (a firefighter). That was a clever choice by the author, as it made everything the heroine did believable (from lighting Pestilence on fire to knowing how to fight her way through most scrapes to staying with the dying, not letting them go until they passed). CON: Heroine was cold, distant, and vicious at times, too. I felt like I was being introduced to Katniss Everdeen from "The Hunger Games" one moment, then some Victorian romance novel heroine the next. The dichotomy was too difficult a crevasse to jump at times.

PRO: Pestilence's drive to fulfill his purpose, the magic that compels him, was a good angle as it brought into the plot the equation of free will versus destiny, and allowed the opportunity for the hero to evolve beyond his 'programming'. That made the romance with a human possible. CON: Pestilence's personality is modeled on the Talmudic idea of angelic behavior, not post-Jesus/new covenant ideas, and so his character is very Old Testament-wrath-and-ruin. It was difficult to like him until the last few chapters of the book, even during moments when he was evolving and learning how to feel emotions. I couldn't connect with his character on a deeper level, honestly, because a lot of his thinking was in his head and we didn't get that POV.

PRO: Slow burn narratives are wonderful when you really want to make the audience pant for a couple of come together. Laura T. delivers here, beginning the hero/heroine as enemies, then over time forcing them to respect each other and become something akin to friends, and building up to a romance and sexual interest. The story felt well-paced for this type of narrative. CON: I admit, I was turning pages fast during the first read-through to get to the sex, which is almost at the end of the book. When it finally arrived, though, the sex scene felt..flat. No heat. We'd waited for so many pages for these two to come together physically as well as emotionally, and when they did, it was quickly over and described.....too bit too thin for my tastes. I'd prefer a bit more explicit romance, as I felt this story was classified as New Adult (NA) and not Young Adult (YA), due to the fact the main heroine is a woman in her mid-20's, and not some 16 year old. We don't need erotica, but I've read Regency era romances with hotter sex scenes, honestly.

PRO: Use of secondary and tertiary characters was well-done, given all of them were doomed to die anyway. I did like the randoms who showed up to chase them off or inflict drama, and the use of the elderly couple to move the hero into a place of compassion was well done. CON: Saying that, when the end comes, people always feel cheated to varying degrees, regardless of their age and the circumstances of their death. There's always a bit of resentment and fear there, a wish for more time, a regret for something undone or left unsaid. That's been my experience, anyway. That's why I felt the elderly couple inflicted by disease was too unrealistic for me to take seriously. Their forgiveness and acceptance of their death at his hand was a bit over-the-top, especially since they died so horribly. It's one thing to make it quick and find peace from that, but quite another to suffer in agony at the end. There's no dignity there, and that's bound to make even the gentlest hearts angry.

PRO: The magic of the horse and the horseman is interesting in this tale. There is suffering by both when injury is inflicted, but regeneration is constant and unfailing. That's an ingenious plot device, as it not only allows for Pestilence to do his heavenly duty (reminding us again that he is sanctified by the one and only deity in this universe to get done what must be done), but it also reiterates for us that the hero is immortal, and one layer removed from humans as a result. It keeps that distinction there, so we never forget that he will not die, yet he has chosen to live with a mortal who will. He will suffer for that choice for eternity once she passes (for all living things MUST eventually die), and all for the sake of love. CON: Pestilence having the power to save his beloved from his disease seemed...far-fetched. He's got one job - to spread illness to kill humans. How does he magically now have the ability to turn that on and off? This is not well-explained in the first book and it breaks the established world-building. One hopes Laura T. will explain this better in future novels.

As I look at the future of this series, I now wonder what the end game is for the four horseman? Will their god allow these four imperfect angels (who must all fail in their duties, as to save their one true love from death at their hands) the ability to sire the new generation of hominid life on the planet in the aftermath of the earth's human population meeting its end? Is that, perhaps, what Laura T. is angling for -- a 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' (to borrow the anime title) - a new gospel for the new century? The Old Testament and the Talmud both make reference to beings who were born of angel-human couplings (Nephilim, of which David's giant, Goliath, was believed to be the last). I wonder if this won't be the author's final twist to this series. She so does tend to have delightfully ingenious endings to her stories.

Overall, I give the book 3.95 stars out of 5 (chose 4 stars for this review, but since it's really close...well, always round-up, I say!). "Pestilence" was well-written (I found no SPaG issues), with fascinating characters and a compelling plot. I purchased it when it was version 1.0, and so got the lovely cover of the couple embracing on the front (revision 2.0 is nice, but I prefer the original, honestly). I never once grew bored with the tale and was anxious to always pick it back up whenever I needed to put it down for a bit.

I have already read the preview of "War" (Book 2 in this series) that Laura Thalassa has posted on her Facebook Community, "The Thalassalites", and it looks quite intriguing. It's to be released soon (most likely July 2019), she says. I cannot wait for the opportunity to tear my teeth into it.

Ugh I’m going 3 stars because the authors prose is good. However there are soo many things wrong with this book. First Pestilence is written in this book 839x, this is a 420 page book…839 TIMES! This is also one of the most repetitive books, with zero plot I have ever read. Every chapter the exact same, just building up to a sex scene eventually. Nothing actually happens in this book to move this story forward. Another is that this may be the most toxic relationship I have ever read. However, I also dont read romance. I’m not into the enemies to lovers thing. But damn, this is not what I find romantic at all. How do you forgive the guy that nearly kills you multiple times? Just because he’s hot???? No! This book was simply me falling for a gorgeous cover and a teeny scan of the synopsis, hoping for an action packed apocalyptic fantasy, with some romance. My fault completely. I’m super bummed as I bought the entire series at once 🤦🏼‍♀️ A waste for me.

This author has a ton of potential. She writes incredibly well. I hope that she will figure out how to incorporate a good plot, and write better enemies to lovers (they dont have to be violently abusive, cue Stephanie Garber).