Pestilence (The Four Horsemen, #1) by Laura Thalassa

Series: The Four Horsemen*

Release Date: March 20th, 2018

Rating: 3.25/5 stars

*Each novel in the series is Standalone

Pestilence is completely brutal and quite a savage conceptualization of an apocalyptic world. Not that that was a surprise since the hero is Pestilence (this is the hero’s name as well btw), one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. This was an intriguing book, but it was definitely not one that I like solely (or at all) because of the romance. I loved the narration of Pestilence, and the description of Sara’s world and Pestilence. The dichotomy between this man who looks like Prince freaking Charming coming straight from a Disney fairytale but at will can make any person die from a horrible disease that has no cure is, of course, freaky but also quite intriguing.

Morality and mortality were huge themes in Pestilence, which is kind of obvious since it is about the apocalypse. The story starts with Sara and her fellow first responder peers drawing sticks to see who has to stay behind to give everyone else in their town time to get away from Pestilence. Obviously, the goal is for this person is to attempt to kill Pestilence. While Sara does achieve this (in a really horrific way, to say the least), she’s in for the shock of her life when it turns out Pestilence is immortal and regenerates after death (comes back to life) no matter what is done to him. This was a pivotal characteristic to Pestilence throughout the book because while he is immortal and cannot be killed, he can still feel the pain of what is being done to him, which solidifies his belief in his cause and his distaste towards humankind.

Pestilence also has a severe case of Stockholm syndrome, or at least Sara does. After Sara attempts to–and technically does–kill Pestilence, he regenerates and instead of simply killing her, like he’s done with all the others, he decides to enslave her to teach her a lesson (what a meet-cute, right?). So, right away, you’re thinking how romantic! No? Me neither, because it gets way worse (she basically almost dies many times… although to be fair, not all of them were at the hands of Pestilence, but he definitely was culpable for most of them). While their relationship was by no means healthy or loving (at least in the beginning), it was interesting. Pestilence is obviously not a man, he’s this thing, this being from someplace other, whose only job is to spread God’s message–his disappointment through Pestilence (both literally and figuratively). This is why I suspended my belief a bit and didn’t DNF Pestilence right after I realized the direction the relationship for the main characters was heading.

Now, while the apocalypse was horrible in this book–people, kind people were dying for no reason, and humanity basically went to the pits (shocker)–the constant rebukes and disappointment from Sara to Pestilence for not stopping got on my nerves quite a bit. This is not because I’m a firm believer in the apocalypse but because it contradicted the explanation for why Pestilence was even on Earth: humanity had lost its way. It was no longer seen as redeemable… although hope was not lost until the last horseman rode upon the Earth. So, hope was not lost, humanity could turn things around still. And yet, Sara just kept blaming in on Pestilence. Now, if this was some random dude and Pestilence was a crime novel (where the hero was part of a gang or motorcycle club), ya, I would agree with Sara. But, Pestilence was literally the physical manifestation of Pestilence. He was a messenger of God, so the idea that Sara could simply say Pestilence’s actions (him doing the job God gave him) hurts and angers her doesn’t seem to be reason enough to stop the freaking apocalypse.

To enjoy the romance, you have to suspend your disbelief. Also, the romance between Sara and Pestilence was not healthy. But because Pestilence is not human, I didn’t focus on how horrible Pestilence and Sara are to each other (including torture, physical and psychological abuse). Instead, I decided to focus on the theme of self-growth in Pestilence, as Pestilence learns that maybe not all humans deserve to die, and where Sara learns that it is humanity that has to change their ways, not Pestilence. Pestilence is simply the messenger of the impending end of the world–which will happen if humanity doesn’t alter its course.

The most enjoyable part of this novel was Pestilence experiencing emotions, food, and the parts of humanity that were good, kind and happy. Pestilence becoming more emotive also created tension between duty and desire, which was very compelling. Here is this entity who has existed since the beginning of time, and who is just now learning to love, to live life and to enjoy living. Of course, after these discoveries, he starts struggling with the fact that not everyone deserves to die. Thalassa did a fantastic job with this part of the book.

So while Pestilence depicts unrealistic situations (even for an apocalypse) and the heroine suffers from Stockholm syndrome, the imagery and complexity of the characters in Pestilence make this a captivating read.

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