This book was deliciously fun. Who would have thought that Pestilence could be so adorably yummy. And Sara is so easily relatable. I feel like her actions throughout the book not only made perfect sense but would be a similar thought pattern and behaviors that I would have done. Overall the flow and development of this book was fantastic. An easy read that you wanted to know what happened next and kept you interested. I read the book in the matter of a couple of hours and look forward to reading the next one as soon as possible.

The way I devoured this book in a day 🙌🏼 I was hooked from the get go. The FMC, Sara, is one of the last firefighters left in town. All of the residents have already evacuated knowing Pestilence and the apocalypse are upon them. Her team draws pieces of paper to see who will be the last to leave and fend off Pestilence. Unfortunate for her, she gets chosen with the black piece.

She makes a valiant effort and plots to kill Pestilence. However shooting and burning him alive fail, as the next day she wakes to the horseman’s rage filled eyes seeking revenge for her lack of mercy. He ties her to his horse and has her trail along his journey to spread the plague and get a front row seat to the destruction. Throughout their travels the close proximity and companionship has them questioning everything as some feelings start to form.

Thoroughly enjoyed this read and all of its ups and downs. Definitely teared up in some chapters. I don’t know how both Sara and Pestilence were able to deal with all the suffering 😭 Those last chapters were the best … especially when he showed up at her front door. He literally went against everything for her 🥺 I adored how the super scary Pestilence literally would become a teddy bear only for her (definitely not right away… but a bit further into the read). Also, loved how Sara brought the humanity out of him and made him try foods/drinks 😂 I can’t wait to read about his brothers and what will come next during the years of the horsemen.

Tropes: Fantasy Romance, Apocalypse, Forced Proximity, One tent, One horse, Touch him/her and I’ll end you

Apocalyptically fantastic

World, I’ve found my new obsession. Laura Thalassa distilled all my dystopian fantasy dreams, wrapped them up in a bow, and handed them to me in one deliciously dark package. This book murdered me, in the best possible way. The four horsemen stories have always fascinated me, and this one hits the spot just right.

The book is equal parts uproariously funny and equal parts heartbreaking. The picture the author paints of a hopeless and desperate world is chillingly bleak, and she pulls no punches. Pestilence is a terribly flawed (understatement), deeply troubled, complexly layered male protagonist, and Sara Burns is one badass boss lady of a heroine. As befits the end of the world, the stakes are high, and they remain so even right up to the end, even though we get our HEA. But it’s not over yet, not by any means. There’s 4 of them, remember? And I cannot wait for them, each hopefully darker and deadlier than the last.

Laura Thalassa is a great fantasy romance author and this start of a series is no different.

I previously read the Bargainer series by her and have been really excited to give The Four Horseman a try.

With Pestilence we are fall him the youngest brother of the 4 four horseman. The four brothers to help bring the apocalypse to earth. But in walks Sara. She draws the short straw and is tasked with taking out Pestilence. Although know one told her Pestilence can not be killed and she is left his rag doll prisoner.

You follow them through this journey to bring the world down with the plague. It's vicious and unforgiving. But through it all Pestilence and Sara grow to love one another.

I really enjoyed this and can't wait to read the rest of the brothers.

The first book of Laura Thalassa’s Four Horsemen series, Pestilence introduces you to a contemporary world similar to ours, except for the whole “apocalypse is upon us part.” Pestilence and his steed are traveling through the Canadian/American Pacific Northwest carrying out his sole purpose, the annihilation of the human race. Sara Burns is looking to stop him, but that pesky immortality keeps getting in the way, so he decides to take her along for the ride down the coast! Let’s see if she can convince him to forsake his purpose.

The post-apocalyptic world that Laura Thalassa builds immediately sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go. I adore her prose and narration through the novel. Pestilence encompasses all of the intense emotions: tragedy, compassion, desperation, angst, a little bit of love! To be honest, for a post-apocalyptic romance, I thought alot more than I realized, especially with such an attractive man on the cover. The matter of religion is handled in a very respectful manner, in my opinion. Nothing is offensive or contradictory to the beliefs of the Abrahamic creeds: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. We are convinced God is beyond religions so all religions deserve respect. It is discussed in a very neutral manner. But thanks for the existential crisis, Laura.

-Canadian/American PNW
-Forced Proximity
-Enemies-to-lovers
-Opposites Attract
-Virgin Hero
-One Horse, Two Riders

CW/TW: Graphic Illness, Torture, Sexual Content, Hostage Situation, High Count Death

Can Laura Thalassa write a bad book? I’ve yet to see it happen. This was such a good read, I devoured it in less than a day. I love the author’s writing, and all of her books get me addicted from the beginning.

I was really impressed by how much I liked this book. I’m not big into darker romance novels, and this one got pretty dark at times. The author did an amazing job building a romance around it, though, that sometimes I forgot what was going on the world around them.

I really liked Pestilence’s character growth and how slowly begins to understand humanity. He was a complex character to understand.

My only negative was that it was hard at times to imagine falling in love with a being that is literally killing everyone and has no plans to stop. But that could be my own personal preference to lighter books. Either way, I’m excited to read the rest of the series!

Really enjoyed this romance/fantasy novel and can’t wait to read the next installment. Don’t think I can do it justice to try and summarize so I’ll just say read it and once you start won’t be able to put it down! I want to thank NetGalley and Bloom Books for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this really bad, I've loved everything Laura Thalassa has written before. This was well-written, had excellent character development, tensions, and world-building. However, there is no plot. The entirety of the plot is that Pestilence has awoken, is on a rampage, spares her because of a vague sign, they slowly fall in love, break apart, then make up. I'd recommend this to someone looking for pure romance, but not to someone who actually wants to be engaged in a story.

Pestilence is the first of the horsemen to end all things. Sara shoots him off his steed and he takes her prisoner. But the longer he spends besides her, the more he falls for her and humanity...

Lots of angst, tears and drama. Sara is terrific and easily liked. Pestilence took a little time for me to like... Lots of violence though and it can get graphic. So definitely not for the kids.... But a terrific book overall.

Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

I was fortunate enough to receive an advanced reader's copy of Pestilence by Laura Thalassa from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am a big fan of Laura Thalassa, but I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this novel given the circumstances of Sara and Pestilence‘s first meeting (definitely not a meet-cute when you try to kill somebody). Happily, her talent for storytelling proved me wrong!

Pestilence is a fast-moving tale that begins with the arrival of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, an unsuccessful attempt at murder, and seemingly little romantic interest between the main characters, that lust and love seem absurdly implausible. Then, you continue reading and you realize that Laura Thalassa made it work, the book was pretty fantastic, and you’re at the end of the first book (with no second book to read, boo!). I was fully engaged the entire book and I cannot wait until book two is released.

3.5
So one of my favorite booktubers @beccaandthebooks mentioned this book a long time ago and it kind of stuck in my mind so I added it to my to-read list on Goodreads. After finishing a book yesterday morning I immediately wanted to start another and when I was on the homescreen for the Kindle reading app I saw this one. I remembered really wanting to give it a try and saw that with Amazon Prime it was free so I snatched it up. I'm going to be honest, I wasn't sure what I expected when I added it to my list and I definitely didn't know what emotional rollercoaster I was getting on when I started it but hey...it happened.

I'm not what you would call a particularly religious person. I believe in a god, whether they are called god, Allah, Mohammad, Buddha and this book made me wonder some things about the end of the world and what it would bring. It made me uncomfortable which probably didn't help my feelings on this book any since it was essentially stockholm syndrome between Pestilence and Sara. Did I enjoy the book, yes. Did I think it was problematic in the way the romance was brought to the page, yes absolutely.

My major problem was the fact that he quite literally shoots her twice (upon her attempting to escape him after he's taken her hostage) and because he takes care of her and helps her heal from said wounds she starts to see "goodness" in him. She starts to see that he doesn't like doing what he's doing and attempts to change him. Which let's be honest, given the circumstances and the fact that the world is literally housing one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse anyone would be trying to dissuade him. However she get's angry and upset with him because he can't change. God sent him on this mission and he has a duty to carry it out. She, THE PRISONER, is upset that the NOT HUMAN GOD LIKE HORSEMAN who took her captive won't give into her demands to stop what he's doing. Then as she's basically giving up he decides...I like this human she entertains me and I want her to suffer so he keeps her around causing her to essentially fall in love with him. I just, I don't know. Like I said, I enjoyed the book more than enough to finish it super quickly. I'm all about that 'enemies to lovers' and 'forced proximity' trope but this was definitely pushing it for me. Kidnapping/ hostage falling in love is not on the list of things that works for me. Am I going to be giving the next one a try? Maybe, I haven't fully decided yet however I will be putting it down if I get the same feelings that this one brought me.

I want to say thank you to Netgalley for letting me read a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I hope you all take the time to look into this book and think about whether it will make you comfortable reading it.

I am notorious for hearing about books, wanting to read them, and then waiting years to do so. Reading Pestilence by Laura Thalassa is no different and as per usual, I am metaphorically kicking my own butt for waiting so long. Just yesterday (3/24) Bloom Books posted that they were allowing the first 500 people free copies of Pestilence through Net Galley. I figured, this way my time to do what I should have done and finally read the dang book! I’m not sure when Bloom Books picked up The Four Horsemen series, but I noticed a few weeks ago that both The Bargainer Series and The Four Horsemen Series were getting a makeover. I was so excited because while I did love the original covers, the new covers really piqued my interest. I have already told myself I am going to preorder the new Pestilence and now that I’ve read the book, I am even more inclined to do so!

First off, I forget how much I really do love the science fiction/fantasy story lines of books. This one was no different. I really loved the character development of both Sara and Pestilence. I could feel the change in Pestilence over the course of the book. I felt like I could feel both his coldness and distance as well as his warmth and appreciation. As for Sara, she realized what Pestilence saw in humans from the beginning – that they can be both calculating and evil. However, Sara never wavers from always trying to be kind, even when humanity continuously shows its ugly side.

I love everything about this book. The plot, the full-on love that essentially SHOULD NOT be developing between Sara and Pestilence, the character development. It had its funny banter moments, it had its sad and angsty moments, and it had it just pure happy, loving moments. I honestly can’t wait to read the rest of this series and I hope that Sara and Pestilence make cameos in the remaining books!

Real talk - this story is not for everyone. Heck. I didn't even think this would be for me. So imagine my surprise when I found myself somewhat entertained!

There are two major parts to this story - the dystopian, post-apocalyptic world that is present after the arrival of the Four Horseman (Pestilence, in particular) and the Stockholm Syndrome-esque romance between Pestilence and Sara. It's the first part, the world-building, that really got my attention.

Not that the romance is horrible - I just personally couldn't stand Sara. I didn't find her funny like most readers do. She was just too rough for me to like and, believe it or not, I thought Pestilence deserved better. But I did enjoy Pestilence finding his own humanity and growth because of his interactions with her.

I'm interested to see how the series progresses with the other Horseman and how the world-building will be portrayed. Hopefully there's more of it because I think it's areally interesting concept!

I... can't believe I actually really read this, considering my aversion towards stereotypical romance novels with Unnaturally Buff Guy™ on the cover. I went into this merely out of curiosity to see just how weird it would be. Because the premise? Absolutely marvelous, the stuff of my dreams, all my favourite tropes in a single book. It falls somewhere between dystopian and urban fantasy, but to my knowledge no one else has tackled the Riders of the Apocalypse as romantic interests before. For shame! Here I sit now, having finished Pestilence in a little over 48 hours, and I got to admit that it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.

Are two stars an objectively good rating? Not really. Would I recommend Pestilence to a friend? Maybe for the laughs. Did I have a great time reading this and would read it again? Somehow I did, and yes, I would! Because let's face it, Thalassa's humor is her greatest writing asset, and it shows that her Apocalypse series should not be taken too seriously. Her tough, foul-mouthed protagonist Sara and the post-apocalyptic boyfriend - an actual expression from the text - get into the most hilarious situations as he tries to figure out how to human. Don't get me wrong, this is a dark, violent story that doesn't shy away from body horror, but it still felt like an easy read and not like something out of a genre I'm not accustomed to.

I would even give Pestilence three stars, were the intimacy not repetitive and falling victim to the drabbest nsfw vocabulary imagineable, rendering those scenes strangely out of tune with the rest of the writing - one of the reasons I normally avoid this particular kind of erotica. There was also a pattern of Pestilence and Sara breaking into houses, resting, riding through cities and being ambushed, then finding a house to recover in, which got old quickly, but also created plot holes. Additionally, the ending left much to be desired and didn't resolve most of the problematic issues of the romance, although the heroine is otherwise decisively feminist in her views.

5⭐️ 3🌶️

- M/F
- 4 Horsemen of the apocalypse
- Enemies to lovers
- Forced proximity
- One horse
- Slow burn

This was my first Laura Thalassa book and I was hooked! I had a bit of a hard time categorizing it because while it is definitely enemies to lovers it was also kind of a bully book, but not in a way that I traditionally associate with bully books. This book made me so I uncomfortable at times but I still loved it.

I love Pestilence! He was just so laser focused on his task until he wasn’t. I loved how oblivious he was to all things human despite knowing so much about the terrible things they are capable of.

I loved Sara, she was so brave! I felt just as conflicted as she did when she begrudgingly started to care for Pestilence. I too had trouble reconciling the man he was with her with the horseman determined to fulfil his purpose. The chapters with the older couple gutted me.

I love this series so much and can’t wait to get physical copies with the new covers. How many versions is too many versions? Asking for myself.

The four horsemen race to all corners of the Earth to destroy all of humanity. One of the horsemen, Pestilence, makes his way to Sara Burn’s town with one thing on his mind: death. Failing to kill the horseman, Sara is taken as his prisoner. However, as time goes on and the longer they’re with each other, feelings start to blossom. Can Sara change Pestilence’s mind and save the world by stopping him from causing death?
•
I ate this book UP! This was so beautifully executed, and it had me hooked from the start. I absolutely loved the concept and message behind this book. It was an easy, fast paced read with a little bit of spice, making me eager for more! I’d highly recommend.
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Thank you so much for the copy Laura!

Let me start off by saying I’m a huge fan of dark romance novels. Gild, A Touch of Darkness, What Lies Beyond the Veil - those are all books I’ve loved with top notch character arcs and world building. But this one, wow. It’s like the author didn’t even try to make this anything other than some disturbing biblical fanfic. It’s really quite alarming.

Pestilence, one of the horseman of the apocalypse, is spreading plague with the sole intent of killing the human population, and our protagonist, his prisoner, cannot stop obsessing over his looks and how much she wants to kiss him. They spend four days in a house in which she watches an entire family, including two children, die, and she’s sitting there fighting off her romantic interest in him. I’m sorry but this was so unbelievable for me. She’s supposed to be a firefighter, she’s trying to save people, she’s watching them die, and she’s lusting over the person responsible?? Someone who outright said he’s going to continue killing people?

I think my favorite awful part is when Pestilence is trying to reconcile is feelings for Sara and they break into yet another home and Sara’s thinking about how the owner is a mean, mean man because he hates her for Pestilence being in his house. Of course he hates you!!! You’re consorting with someone who is committing mass murder. I could seriously keep going. The characters in this book are delusional - this whole plot is not grounded in any sort of reality that makes sense - not even in the book’s world.

Overall, I think the concept of romance with the four horsemen is really neat, and perhaps if there had been some grander plan, or if the horsemen were trying to save humankind and not actively killing them, then it might have worked. I just feel the author did herself a disservice by not even attempting to build up the world or trying to create a rationale for the appearance of the four horseman beyond humans are evil and must die for their sins. And the romance - again he’s literally killing people while she’s lusting over him and after several days of watching her injure herself as his prisoner, he’s somehow jumped from feeling guilty to loving her? Yes, there’s redemption, but in order for that to work there needed to be plausible reasons at the start, that groundwork needed to be set and it wasn’t. This was just so poorly done and after seeing all the rave reviews, extremely disappointing. I’m giving it two stars only because I kept flipping the pages.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Bloom Books for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to go ahead and review the series as a whole, because there are common themes that run throughout that are uniquely explicated in each book.

Where do I even start? First, that I totally understand the hype about this series now. It’s one of those series that grabs you by the throat and takes you along for one hell (pun intended) of a ride.

Each FMC brings different elements of humanity to the fore that speak to their angelic counterparts in profound ways. And the ways in which author Laura Thalassa explores idea about God, humanity, frailty, good, and evil are so intriguing. Though these were written starting in the “before” times, Thalassa’s work seems all the more prescient today.

If you want your mind and heart challenged, if you want to experience the beauties of love and human nature (and their ugliness, too), then please, please read this series. It is masterful.

5/5 ⭐️ 3/5 🌶️

Pestilence is my favorite of the four horsemen brothers. I love loved how Laura wrote this story. It was one of my first time reading a book with these tropes and fell in love and was smiling and rooting for them the whole time.

I really enjoyed seeing Sara and Pestilences story unfold. Pestilence was such a bully for so long until he wasn’t and I was here for it. I really can’t wait to the read the story again soon.

Pestilence kicks off a story of the Four Horsemen arriving on their steeds to the four corners of the earth, to do do what the Four Horsemen do and bring the apocalypse. In this book, Pestilence, obviously, has arrived and brought with him a plague across North America. We start off with Sara who's been tasked with killing Pestilence as he comes through her town, but no one knew that Pestilence can't be killed.... And Pestilence finds himself totally fascinated with this human being who had the gall to attack him.

I loved this story. It's not for everybody, but if you live and die for morally grey/villainous heroes and enemies-to-lovers vibes, I have a feeling you will love this too. Of course these stories live in Romancelandia and so require a certain amount of disbelief, but I loved the moral questions that this book inspired. There's this immortal, tortured soul whose one divine purpose in "life" is to eradicate mankind, and he falls in love with a living woman, but she is fighting for her life and all human beings on earth?? Talk about max angst!!! Is Pestilence just fulfilling God's plan and therefore absolved of guilt, or is it God's plan all along for mankind to have one last chance at retribution? Oh, and there's a touch of virgin hero goodness...

I originally read this maybe a year or two ago and I gave it a pretty low rating, but this story and series sticks with me years later. I still think about it, I still gush about it. And I totally enjoyed reading it again!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book through Netgalley and the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.