Pestilence

• Author: Laura Thalassa
• Genre: Romance
• Publication Date: August 15, 2023 
• Publisher: Bloom Books
• Series: The Four Horsemen #1

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloom Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: plague, blood, gore, torture, death, death of children, violence, gun violence, grief

They came to earth—Pestilence, War, Famine, Death—four horsemen riding their screaming steeds, racing to the corners of the world. Four horsemen with the power to destroy all of humanity. They came to earth, and they came to end us all.

When Pestilence comes for Sara Burn’s town, one thing is certain: everyone she knows and loves is marked for death. Unless, of course, the angelic-looking horseman is stopped, which is exactly what Sara has in mind when she shoots the unholy beast off his steed.

Too bad no one told her Pestilence can’t be killed.

Now the horseman, very much alive and very pissed off, has taken her prisoner, and he’s eager to make her suffer. Only, the longer she’s with him, the more uncertain she is about his true feelings towards her… and hers towards him.

And now, well, Sara might still be able to save the world, but in order to do so, she’ll have to sacrifice her heart in the process.

From bestselling indie author Laura Thalassa comes a dark fantasy romance between the Horseman Pestilence and Sara, the girl who shoots Pestilence down only to realize he can’t be killed. He takes her as prisoner, but the longer they’re together, the more uncertain their feelings for each other grow.

I’ve had my eye on this author, and have been meaning to pick up one of her books for an embarrassingly long time, but haven’t gotten around to it. This indie series was picked up by a traditional publisher to be rereleased, and I was thrilled to get approved for it.

This book was tough for me to rate because I have some mixed feelings about it. There were some things that I enjoyed and that were done really well, and some things that I didn’t like as much. Let’s get into the things I liked.

Thalassa’s writing is smooth and reads effortlessly. The pages would fly, and I went through this book surprisingly fast. I loved the way Sara spoke fluent sarcasm, because her inner monologue sounded a lot like mine at times. Once I got past the initial meet-not-so-cute, the enemies-to-lovers trope was done beautifully. I can’t forget to mention the spice, which was slow-burn and fantastic. Finally, there’s a light-hearted and fun dynamic at times, which almost had me forgetting that I was reading about the end of the world.

However, there were also some things that didn’t work for me. I always try to put myself in the character’s shoes when I’m reading, and I guess there’s a huge difference between Sara and I, because we have some seriously different responses to things. Like torture for example: if someone tortures me, I don’t care how pretty they are, I’m going to hold a grudge until the end of time; whereas Sara seems super quick to forgive Pestilence because he’s pretty. Also, their smexy times seem to happen at times when there’s some seriously unsmexy stuff going on … right after throwing up, when people are dying of the plague right nearby, etc. 

The relationship is given time to build, and readers get to see the dynamic change slowly as Pestilence and Sara are forced together. But as they do this, their daily routine was repetitive. They go to a town, enter a house, spend the night, leave and repeat the process. Throughout the entire book. And for so much of the book, Sara’s internal dilemma was repetitive as well. She spends half the book trying to convince herself that she hates him and does want him because he’s pretty, then almost the rest of the second half trying to convince herself that she isn’t in love with him when it’s blatantly obvious that she is. It got a bit frustrating at times.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad read, even with the issues I had with it. I especially loved how it ended, and can’t wait to start reading the next book in the series.