Pestilence: The Four Horsemen – Book 1

Sara drew the short straw, and now must kill one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. No, she’s not suicidal, though this task will likely get her killed. As her hometown of Whistler is evacuating, Sara must stay behind and kill Pestilence, the horseman of the apocalypse who is spreading plague through everywhere he rides. She’s not a killer. She’s a firefighter with a love of literature. But Pestilence is the one killing off the world, so someone must take him out, and Sara is the unlucky nominee. When her attempt fails because––surprise surprise––Pestilence can’t die, he takes Sara as his prisoner. He wants her to suffer. Turns out setting a guy on fire and leaving him to die will bring out his need for vengeance. Since only the living can suffer, he must keep her alive just so he can give her pain in return. As they travel, Pestilence is true to his word and makes her suffer—both intentionally, like dragging her behind his horse, and through his own ignorance by not understanding what humans need to survive. He’s not trying to kill her, but he doesn’t realize how fragile humans are either. Pestilence doesn’t see anything redeeming in humanity, and so doesn’t have any regret for causing their extinction. They deserve what they’re getting. But with every home they barge into, as those that live in the houses succumb to the plague, Sara shows Pestilence what compassion is as she takes care of the people as they die. Sara is the first to show Pestilence how good humans can be, but she’s still just one example. The longer they journey together, the closer they become. Sara tries to fight her feelings for him. He’s a mass murderer after all, as well as her tormentor. But she can see that he doesn’t enjoy seeing people suffer. He’s just playing his part. Maybe he doesn’t have a choice in his role. Since she can’t help how she feels about him, maybe she can change his mind. If he can’t be killed, maybe he can be convinced. Pestilence comes to care for Sara as well, and transitions from her tormentor to her protector. Ironically, coming to care for a human makes Pestilence hate humanity even more, as the human he’s trying to protect is in constant danger from those who want to hurt him. The more attempts made on Sara’s life, the greater his rage, and now there’s just one more sin they need to die for. She is ready to sacrifice herself to save the rest of humanity and he wants to kill everyone but her. These two are clearly at an impasse.

Can these two lovebirds overcome irreconcilable differences? Reaching the answer is an entertaining journey that will keep you hooked until the end. Their relationship is the focus of the story, with an apocalyptic setting that doesn’t overtake the character development. It’s fast-paced with high stakes—can’t get higher with the extinction of humanity on the line––and yet it’s still a guilty pleasure as the story somehow makes you fall for the harbinger of death. Pestilence begins as a cruel god-like character. Prior to the apocalypse he existed solely as the concept of illness, so he had never felt emotions. But in this new form, capable of interacting with others and going through his own human-like experience for the first time, there’s a vulnerability that keeps you from seeing him as a total villain. Sara reflects the best of humanity from the get-go––strength in attempting to kill Pestilence, and compassion through her own disgust at what she does to kill him––and acts as the perfect advocate for the rest of us. This story had a steady pace, and kept me on the line until its conclusion––never boring or slow. The book does lead into the sequel, but it doesn’t leave you dissatisfied the way a cliffhanger normally would. If you want to just read the first book, and don’t care about the larger story being told, then I think you could be satisfied with just reading this one. At the end, you feel that the story could wrap up (mostly) for Sara and Pestilence or it could continue with them in the next book. Personally, not that I don’t love the characters that she’s created, but I’d be curious to see the story continue on without them as the focus. It’s an interesting world she’s created, and I’d like to see it grow to include more characters. Overall, I recommend!