Book Review: Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

 

Goodreads Summary: 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 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.

Genre Listing: Fantasy, Romance, Fantasy Romance, New Adult, Dystopia

Goodreads Rating: 3.89 stars with over 100,000 ratings

Goodreads/StoryGraph Challenge: 19/40

2024 Reading Challenge: #25 Read an Enemies to Lovers story (See the entire challenge here)

Book Review:

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well. I picked up Pestilence a while ago. It was an interesting concept, and I really enjoyed Laura Thalassa's Unearthly series. Plus, the cover was pretty. I picked up the other 3 for the pretty covers while Target was having a sale recently. 

I enjoyed the story. I wasn't expecting any great work of literature, but I was entertained. Honestly, that's what I hope for with a book- entertained and gets me out of my head. This succeeded in doing so. I liked Sara as a character. I thought she was funny and relatable. Pestilence was a little dry in personality, but that seemed fitting. The story is basically sexy Stockholm Syndrome in an apocalyptic setting. 

The scene setting was pretty basic apocalypse stuff - abandoned houses, some with electricity, some without. I was confused that there was still TV, but I'm probably overthinking this. For the Romantacy readers - this is probably a 1 or a 2 on the spice level. I'm unfamiliar with the rating system, and it's likely subjective. The sex scenes don't really happen until the last 40% of the book, and they're pretty tame. There are 3-4 scenes, if that. The religious overtures were surprisingly light, considering the premise. It's mostly presented as humans had some of the story of God, but not all of it. I never felt like it got preachy, which was good. I probably wouldn't have finished it if it did.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. It's good for a light Fantasy/Romance read. If you want to be entertained for around 400 pages, I recommend it. I'll probably read the rest of the series eventually since I have all four books.