A book that starts off very slowly and didn't hold me right from the start but, more by the end, was impossible to put down! A novel with a fantastic and dystopian touch that, besides making us sigh, makes us think about the path our lives are taking. A gripping writing, dubious characters who end up winning us over and with whom it is easy to identify. The plot, although original and well constructed as a whole, has many repetitive moments, in the end we have a succession of events that always end up being too similar, which makes the story quite predictable. A reading that I enjoyed a lot and that I recommend despite not being a favorite.

Plot | 2⭐
Characters | 4⭐
Ease of Read | 3⭐
Quality of Writing | 4⭐

Overall | 3.25⭐

I have been hearing about this book for a while and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to read it The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come to Earth and bring with them destruction and then they left. Then five years later Pestilence came back and he's riding his horse across the world and leave death and disease in his wake. Sara Burns has drawn the short end of the stick and has been chosen to stay in her town and take Pestilence down when he rides through. She soon finds out he can't be killed and he's taking her as a prisoner for a front seat view to the end of the world.

I couldn't put this book down. I loved Sara and how witty she was. I felt bad for Pestilence. This book was great. All the stars from me. Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC.

I loved this one! The pacing I. This fantasy romance had me hooked. While it took me a bit to warm up to the MMC, I did really enjoy this one in the end and will be continuing the series.

I am struggling to compile my thoughts on this book. In one hand, I enjoyed it. But in the other hand, I’m also slightly annoyed by it?
Sara was not an enjoyable character for me. It is such a human fictional thought that you could kill one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse with a shotgun. She literally thought she could kill Pestilence with a shotgun, a being who can quite literally kill a man with a single look? I also thought it was so mundane that Sara also didn’t think that anyone else would have tried to kill Pestilence before her?

I also cannot in good faith give this higher than a 3⭐️, simply because the FMC used the term ‘lady goods’ to describe her own sexual organs.. multiple times!

By no means was this a bad book though. I still found it quite enjoyable for the most part. But I couldn’t help but cringe at so many actions Sara would take, or how she thought (or rather didn’t think) about how other people wouldn’t also have a fight response to someone invading their space and trying to wipe them out with the plague. Despite this, the progression of Pestilence’s and Sara’s relationship was fast, yet endearing at times, and the smut was quite good too.

The epilogue did leave me slightly intrigued to pick up book 2 too, so there’s that?

If you enjoy a fantasy (?) romance with a snarky main character, a grumpy male lead, and would like to read about a developing relationship where the girl tries to humanise the guy - this is the type of book for you!

TL;DR: The smut was good, the story was fast paced - but overall I found the story to be incredibly predicable and strongly disliked Sara, the main character.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the complimentary e-arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this review are my own.

3.5⭐️ I definitely enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I live in BC Canada so knowing it was set in my province hooked me right away. Pestilence was a great character. More than a morally grey main character; he had fantastic development throughout the story. A horseman of the apocalypse who discovers his own humanity.
I’ve read some of Thalassa’s books before this one and this book solidified the following opinion: she writes pretty unlikeable female characters. Sara seems just as immature and fickle as Thalassa’s other FMC. When she named the horse Trixie Skillz, i had to question whether this was actually a 23 year old woman or a 15 year old girl.
Overall I found the story interesting but I’m undecided if I’ll continue with the series.

I was intrigued, a smutty novel with the apocalypse and the horsemen…….
I read this book in one day because I kept waiting for it to pick up and get good. Toward the end is where it got good. I did like the take on the Apocalypse and how it brought out the worst in people. I enjoyed the old couple and their story. I also enjoyed the ending and how it set up for the next book:

Not my favorite book but I’ll give the series’s another shot with WAR.

This was a tab bid back and forth for me. I enjoyed the premises of the book and the character development. It was a little tiresome at some points. He had a job to do, she didn’t like the idea of it and it was a bit repetitive. I get it, he has to keep Sara in check.
Yes, I will be reading the rest of the series because the topic intrigues me.

This is a reread for me, I read this for the first time four years ago and multiple times after that.
I rated it 5 stars back then and would still rate it 5 stars today.

It's one of those books that can pull me out of a reading slump.
I love everything about it including the main characters, the setting, and the storyline.

Also, I love the new cover art.

Damn, where to even start. The beginning of this series was fantastic. Sara is a firefighter who risks her life to take down one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in hopes of saving her family and friends. She quickly discovers he cannot be killed but slowly comes to enjoy his company...

I loved our main character, Sara, and her quips. I often find writing with modern diction to be over the top, however, I thought the author did a great job. I found myself enjoying the contrast between quoted classic literature and profanity. I also loved how Pestilence's character slowly evolved. He starts off very one-dimensional but soon starts to display unfiltered human emotions and feelings. I felt as conflicted as Sara did when their relationship started to heat up and Pestilence began to care for her. The scenes with the elderly couple were one of my favourites, and a nice break from the hardships they endured. This was a great read and I'm looking forward to the next in the series!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sharing a copy of this book with me.

Absolutely gorgeous sentence work! The beginning of the book had me hooked. The descriptions are absolutely wonderful.

I am usually not much of a romance reader, but I really liked this one. It took some time for the romance to set in, and for us to get to know both of the characters, and their complexities.
And they are complex. They feel like actual people!

I loved seeing Pestilence start to care for Sarah, and through her humanity as a whole.

I would have liked for it to go more into the friendship area before we started romancing, but that’s just my personal opinion.

I could define see this being a movie.

I first read this book a couple of years ago, and I remember because of the pandemic, I wasn't that into it. I'm glad I reread this because I appreciated the story so much more. The plot is that the four horsemen of the apocalypse have been sent to Earth to destroy it because humans are just not great people (I agree, lol). The first up is Pestilence, and he meets our fmc (Sara) after she shoots him. He then takes her as his prisoner, and she has to ride him while he goes around North America, spreading the plague and destroying the world.

This book is not light, there are some humorous moments, but they are around town, and Sara has to watch people die and care for them. Sara and Pestilence's relationship grows as she teaches him human feelings, emotions, and experiences. I know this is a romance, and the steamy scenes are okay, but what really interested me was this idea of mercy and love that pestilence had to come to terms with. There are some emotional scenes in this, specifically a scene with an older couple that was sad. I could tell that there was more editing in this new version which made it so easy to read I flew through this. This was good, and I'm definitely rereading the next book to see if my thoughts about it have changed as well.
CW: Death, sickness, pestilence, plague,

Thank you, Bloom book and Netgalley, for this arc.

Pestilence is such an interesting book. I liked the concept of the four horsemen coming to earth. Pestilence as a character made complete sense. Sara on the other hand I had difficulty connecting with it even liking. She graphically kills pestilence but then is a gentle and kind person. Her humor and her love of poetry leaves a big disconnect. The book was pretty good overall but at times a little redundant. Loved the character development of Pestilence. I am interested to see how the next book in the series goes. A couple of gaps left open for the other books to fill in. Overall 3.3 ⭐️

Thank you to SOURCEBOOKS Bloom Books and the author for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wow wow and wow! I absolutely loved this book! I could not put it down, brought my kindle with me everywhere to finish it!

“They came with the storm.”
“But I am utterly overwhelmed by him, the First Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Pestilence the Conqueror.”
Spicy, complicated, impossible but still … it is love. Even if with the first Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Wow !!! This book was absolutely great !! With every possible trope you can ever dream of: forced proximity, enemies to lovers, one bed, even the kïdnapping trope (because they clearly wanted to unalive each other) you will have one of the best dark romance books you could have have in between hands !!!! I can’t stop thinking about how much I loved it and how much I, just like Sara, fell for the wrong man at the worst possible time !!!!! Pestilence is not even a man actually … so maybe that does not count.
Their relationship so complicated and so confusing and so hot and so spicy and so intense… I was not ready for them but I still loved and enjoyed from the bottom of my heart any second of it !!! When the world is absolutely on the verge of collapse and he is there to bring it to the end … she is the only one standing in his way … but soon enough mercy turns into love. This book is a great addiction and I’ll probably be still thinking about it for a while !!!!
"I cannot decide if you are a toxin or a ton-ic," he says, lifting a hand to my cheek. "Only that you plague my thoughts and fill my veins."
“The horseman has learned how to feel.
Nothing good can come of this.
Nothing at all.”

This was a reread for me. I read it 3 years ago and I remembered enjoying it.

I did enjoy the reread just as much as the first read.

I couldn't put it down. I love the story so much that I ended up preordering a copy with the new cover.

Going into this book, I thought it was going to be your typical smutty book, but it turned out to be a very nice love story and humanity.

Seriously was not expecting the story this book actually told. Hard to think that a book about plague incarnate could be a beautiful love story about learning humanity and mercy but that’s exactly what it managed to do.

The only reason why this isn’t a 4 or 5⭐️ for me is because I found the main character’s personality grating at times. And since she’s the narrator the story obviously is told through her voice & that was a little much for me at certain moments. But! That’s definitely just a me thing and I think a lot of people would still really enjoy this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me a copy for review!

This book. Wow.

I had no expectations when I got an option to read it with the new cover (coming August) and I got to say I loved it.

The way she goes about Pestilence finding his humanity and learning the world has some good in it, learning about love, and how Sara is so brave and uncertain about trying to kill Pestilence.

The characters are complex, the plot is intriguing (if a little slow in the middle), and the book is just well done.

I am so excited to read the rest of the Horsemen series.

Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come." I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

— Revelation 6:1–2 New American Standard Bible


The arrival of the four horsemen came out of nowhere. No one knew why they had appeared, only as they rode through cities, countries, and across continents causing all of the world's technology began to fall, plunging the world into darkness. It has been five years since their arrival and most of the world has been trying to find a reason why this has happened, but Pestilence has awakened once more from his slumber and descended upon the world bringing with him a plague that kills a person from the inside.

As Pestilence spreads his plague across the continent, Sara Burns has drawn the black lot and knows that her fate has been sealed. It had been decided from the beginning - whoever pulled the black lot had to remain behind and face Pestilence. This falls to Sara who says her goodbyes to her friends and waits for the arrival of the horseman.

His arrival is seen as a chance. A chance to stop the plague from spreading across the planet and killing people. Sara knows that this means her death but it is a chance she is willing to take and when he arrives, she takes it - shooting the horseman.

Sara believes she has killed the horseman, only to find him furious at her attempts and he drags her across the country as his prisoner.

I loved this book when I first read it. I enjoyed the characters, the apocalyptic nightmare the world has become, and the fact we have the four horsemen as our morally grey men. Characters that see humanity as having done nothing to change their fate and thus needing to be eradicated. Pestilence has no love for humanity and he says this a few times in the dialogue he has with Sara. Even when they stop at a home, he kills them pretty much off without a thought of remorse. He holds contempt for humanity - they have tried to kill him off on numerous occasions to stop his plague.

But something slightly changes in Pestilence. His feelings change for Sara but he does not understand them. He does not know why he is drawn to her and this forced proximity begins to change everything for them.

This is one of my favorite books in the series. I have not read the other three just yet, but this one - I don't know why but I loved it from the first time I read it. I am sorry that the first cover was pulled (I loved that cover! I had to stop Nook from changing it!), but I am glad to see that the newer cover is a lot nicer than the ones in the past (although that French version is beautiful!). I loved how the author used biblical mythology for this book. I had never seen the four horsemen ever used in paranormal romances. This was different. This was a change from the same cliche storylines I kept seeing in paranormal romances.

I just have a few things: I just wish the chapters were a bit longer, there was more of a backstory about the horsemen arriving. We know that the world's technology fails and never recovers, but what about all of humanity? The story opens up in year five but from what Pestilence says he and his brothers were asleep. So, what happened prior to then? How did society change? I know we see some people still living in homes, but with the world in chaos, how do people eat, keep their homes safe, and what about money? Just a little curious about this world, that's all. I am pretty sure some of these may be answered in the next three books, so I am definitely adding them to my 2023 TBR.

How did I not know this existed before!!! Let me tell you, this book felt like my saviour, I had no idea how much I needed that story in my life! I just couldn’t put this book down. It was so good. I feel like this book is a "you rather love or hate". I won’t lie, there are dark things, I mean, it’s the Apocalypse.. and it gets you questioning yourself a lot. I think I sadly fall in the category of people who might think humans are not that redeemable, oopsie, so it was quite easy for me to love Pestilence. And then, if you know me, I always fall for the bad guy so I was obviously going to love a horseman of the Apocalypse, there was not even a doubt in my mind.

Like I said, I’ve read 3 of the 4 books already so let me just say that I love how different each horseman is in its way of seeing things. For Pestilence, it was more a kind of: It’s my job to do this and I’ll do it, no questions asked. I know nothing about you and don’t want to know anything anyways. But with our two characters being in such close proximity all the time, it got him to open his eyes and understand more about humans. And then, he was in a situation where it’s hard to say what’s good and what’s bad. Same for our FMC after seeing so much of humanity at its worst. So really, that whole story got me hooked from start to finish. The character growth was really nice and I loved how their relationship evolved... I mean, it was reaaaaal enemies to lovers and it was just perfect *heart eyes*. Anyways... I’m now officially a Laura Thalassa fan and will look for more of her books that’s for sure!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the eBook. All opinions are my own.

Pestilence by L. Thalassa is the first book in the Four Horsemen Series. A dystopian story that grips trhe reader with both hands and doesn't let go anymore, unputdownable.
A read in one sitting, cover to cover book, excellent written, intriguing the author had me guessing till the last page.
Outstanding, excellent, unique, 5 stars.