Pestilence (The Four Horsemen, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jun 11, 2020 Shan ~A~ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: age-gap, sci-fi, virgin, series-trilogies-i-started, enemies-to-lovers, romance, 1st-in-series, favorites, books-i-own, dark

I loved this book. When I started, knowing there would be a lot of death (or rather assuming), I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it, but it is one of the greatest things I've read recently.

Sara and Pestilence went through a lot throughout their time time together. We get to go on this journey of her trying to save humanity, while dealing with her conflicting feelings about this person who is basically destroying the world as she knows it. While also seeing him in his determination to c ...more

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Mar 29, 2019 Monadh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopia, anti-hero, post-apocalyptic

Emotionally devastating: I cried thru large parts of this book

What a compelling, raw, emotionally devastating story. I have to admit that going in I wasn’t really sold on the idea of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse as love interests, or even main protagonists, since I try to steer clear of books with religious themes. For all that the horsemen are figures from the New Testament, their actual depiction in this post-apocalyptic novel is actually rather anti-religious. The interpretation is a p Emotionally devastating: I cried thru large parts of this book

What a compelling, raw, emotionally devastating story. I have to admit that going in I wasn’t really sold on the idea of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse as love interests, or even main protagonists, since I try to steer clear of books with religious themes. For all that the horsemen are figures from the New Testament, their actual depiction in this post-apocalyptic novel is actually rather anti-religious. The interpretation is a prophetic one, meaning it sets the tribulations in some unspecified but not far-off future (other interpretations connect the horsemen to events in the past or tie them to present phenomena, like seeing them as the personification of the evils of capitalism or communism and other tribulations.
When I say anti-religious I mean that although the horsemen are cast as allegorical figures, they are also imbued with rather pedestrian notion of humanity, that I found both disturbing and compelling.

Pestilence (or Conquest) is described as a medieval knight, clad in shiny armour and with a golden crown on his head, beautiful to look at. The Apocalypse has come over earth a few years ago, and North America, where the story is set, has sort of reverted back to a pre-industrial age. After the initial destruction/disruption the horsemen have been inactive, but now Pestilence is travelling around on his white steed, leaving entire swaths of the country dying from the plague and now he is coming to Sara Burns’ town. She draws the short straw and has to stay behind and try to kill Pestilence in order to save humanity. She does her best, but unfortunately Pestilence is immortal, though he can be hurt. After her failed attempt on him, instead of killing her outright, Pestilence takes Sara as his prisoner and forces her travel with him in order to torture her and make her life miserable as she has to watch all other humans die a horrific death while she alone remains unaffected by the plague. Thus they travel around the country, but again, the physical travel seems metaphorical for the spiritual journey that leads them closer to each other. But how can Sara love an entity (however hot he looks) that is out to eradicate humankind?

The book is written in first person narrative from Sara’s perspective and what made me like the books so much was the author’s voice, the self-deprecating humor of the heroine and her inner strength and willingness to do the right thing in the face of unspeakable atrocities and personal pain and never losing her humanity. But as well as a strength this seemed also a weakness, because we only get a very superficial insight into the psychic landscape of Pestilence and his transformation from the embodiment of plague, described as a kind of immortal sentience, into a man with human feelings. But although I felt the story was lacking with regard to the history of how Pestilence came to be and how he fits into the religious belief-system (which isn’t fleshed out at all), I really, really loved the poignant love story between the two which moved me to tears. So because of the originality of the story and the emotional impact, 5 stars. ...more

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Nov 24, 2024 Sandra rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle, pnr-uf, own, romance, fantasy

I've seen this book around Goodreads, so thought I'd give it a try.

The Four Horsemen, of mythic fame, create the apocalypse, just by being themselves. Planes fall out of the sky, the internet no longer works, electricity is hit or miss etc etc. Then they disappear.

Five years later, when people are just getting used to oil lanterns, Pestilence reappears, spreading the Fever, which doesn't have a cure, and only takes a couple of days to die from.

Sara, a firefighter, draws the short straw, in Whist ...more

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Jul 07, 2019 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I started and stopped this book several times, I still don’t know exactly how I feel about it.... it was dark but not in the traditional way I would describe a dark romance (no rape forced stuff etc) but the violent deaths were just very very disturbing to me ..... the writing was good, the hero totally redeemed although the point was that he didn’t need it... but I still walked away with a weird squeamishy feeling

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Nov 09, 2018 S H A R O N rated it it was ok

Shelves: paranormal, romantical, urban-paranormal, ebook, 2018, sword-and-laser-fantasy-challenge

I think I'm in the minority on this one....but I didn't really care for it. I decided to give it two stars since I did, in fact, finish it...first book I've finished in about two months (yay reading slumps). But beyond the fact that I finished it, there wasn't much compelling about the book.

The seed of a good story was there...which is why I think I kept reading. But where was the character development? We jumped right in with Sara's attempt to assassinate the horseman...which isn't a spoiler be ...more

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Sep 27, 2019 Cc rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebook, favorites, 2019

Sara and Pestilence

The four horseman of the apocalypse come to earth. The first to spread death is Pestilence. He spread plague as he rides.

When he comes to her town Sara draws the short straw and sets out to kill Pestilence as he rides through her town. She shoots him and sets him afire. He lives and hunts her down. Rather than killing her he makes Sara his prisoner, set on making her suffer. He drags her along as he travels spreading death wherever he rides.

This is a very different Beauty a ...more

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