Pestilence (The Four Horsemen Book 1)

I've had this on my wishlist for years and finally bought it and I'm glad I did. So many romance/erotic books gave great storylines but unrelateable or unlikeable female leads. They're either so sassy that they come across as arrogant rather than strong female leads or so sarcastic that they're unbearable or so fatalistic about their 'doomed love' that you just don't care about them. There are moments when Pestilence dips a toe in those sentiments but it never wallows in them and the storyline itself is clever and well told. I found it unrealistic that Sara never questions Pestilence about the safety of her family or uses that as an argument for mercy but it's a minor quibble. I'll be reading the next book in the series.

I absolutely, without a doubt, wholeheartedly recommend this book. Laura Thalassa NEVER disappoints!Firstly, I adore the way Laura writes, it’s so beautiful and immersive!Secondly I adore that fact that it’s an urban fantasy - I love the twists and different takes we get in them!I adore Sara - she is so badass and takes no rubbish form anyone, least of all Pestilence! Her murder attempt for all he’s done, which lets face it - he’s trying to kill off humanity… is utterly savage. This was my first dark Romantasy and I admit for someone who isn’t used to this m, I struggled with the themes at first. But only at first, I very quickly adored Pestilence - ‘you have awoken my heart’. Urgh, this made me utterly fall for him. I loved both Sara and Pestilence’s character arcs - the snark and sassy conversations were everything. This book made me laugh, cry, swoon and everything in between! I loved the ending and continued right onto War!

I think i over hyped this in my head due to book groups on line and i expected more. more what i don't know, it was a good story but it did get a bit dull in places and just when I'd had enough something a bit more exciting happened to keep me invested. I think overall i enjoyed it enough to read book two.

The Four Horseman series - absolutely great read. A lot darker, bloodier, more evil. Love how bad and violent are the heroes and how selfless and determined are the heroines.Have red all 4 books one after another. Hard to put down and not finish. It’s a new interesting world, hot and spicy, never boring, each page just makes you want to read more. I love series where each book represents a new couple. I’m a sucker for HEA, strong characters and nooo triangles or cliffhangers. This is the one to read.

Intriguing read 📚 thoroughly enjoyed this book and have recommended it to a friend, and I look forward to the next one

Pestilence is the first horseman and is sent to spread a plague although while doing so he stumbles upon Sara well I say stumbles she kinda "kills" him little does Sara know you can't actually kill a horseman and oh her trying make our guy hella pissed so of course he decides rather than killing her he will make her suffer and takes her prisoner and you can guess the rest. This book does get a tad repetitive and honeslty for Pestilence being some big bad scary horseman Sara ends up saving his ass more than once just because he can Deadpool style regenerate doesn't really fill me with dread realistically 𝗵𝗲'𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 but other than being hot and you know the whole plague thing he's not all that maybe that's just me realising my level of dark themes in book is really high 😂 don't know what that says about me tbh.That being said I still love this book series and I find myself rereading it alot.Some of my favourite quotes🏹“One doesn’t need to have a solution to recognize a problem when they see one.”🏹“Sara, I don’t know how many minutes you get or I get, but I do know I want to spend them all with you.”🏹“I cannot decide if you are a toxin or a tonic,” he says, lifting a hand to my cheek. “Only that you plague my thoughts and fill my veins.”

So I enjoyed Pestilence, it wasn't my favourite of this authors work but still had more positives for me than negatives.As usual, this was excellently written and this author does have a style of writing that I find ever so easy to get lost in.This is set five years into an apocalypse and I really appreciated the dystopian end of days vibe this had going for it.I do think more could have been made of this particular backdrop and this is where this lost points for me.I myself would have prefered less of the morality discussions and what is right and wrong good versus evil and more of a survivalist and action mindset to the narrative.The constant ongoing journey at times could become monotonous as I felt we were reliving the same script on a continuous loop.So this has Sara drawing the short straw and receiving the unwanted and unpleasant job of taking out pestilence who is sweeping the country spreading his plague far and wide.As the Horseman, himself is actually the Almighty's holy weapon and himself immortal and as punishment for her actions, she now finds herself at his cruelly sadistic mercy, a prisoner of Pestilence's whim's made to pay by the object of her murderous intentions.Initially, the interactions here between the two were extremely violent and cruel on both sides.I think this was to showcase the gradual slip into something more than mutual apathy.Sara is almost Pestilence's teacher on humanity he himself seems to have a limited understanding and empathy on the humans he is tasked with annihilating.Up until now, he has only seen the bad never the good and as Sara slips under his skin he finds himself questioning his task much more.At the onset here it's almost like he is just doing a job, an unpleasant one but a task that needs completing.As he gets to know Sara and experience what it is actually like to live as a man and as a result become more human in the process experiencing his own emotions and longings he slowly starts to evolve into something more.Despite his vast age at times he is almost like a child being slowly educating and breaking free from the parent, finding his own way, making his own decisions and starting anew.This in itself was a journey of discovery as through Sara Pestilence learns Mercy, compassion, hate, Love and all that makes us human and fallible.At times this was such a bleak tale with its utter hopelessness and heartbreak but this was then counterbalanced by the slowly emerging love.This was also very slow burn which it did need to be due to Pestilence's lack of experience which also fit within the narrative.The romance experienced here was really well done but I did sometimes feel a slight disconnect from it, I think maybe not having pestilence's POV contributed to this for me, I much prefer and appreciate if both sides are included in my romance.I also wasn't a massive fan of the eventual conclusion here either and another observation I myself would have like Pestulance to be more bad-ass, the dude kept getting himself shot-up.I would have imagined an age-old entity would have better self-preservation skills myself.Also on a final note whats with that eventual name choice?Finally, I did enjoy this and am most certainly planning to read the next in this series War and despite this not being my top book from this author it's still a solid well-written read that I am happy to recommend.