Name: War
Series: The Four Horsement #2
Author: Laura Thalassa
Publisher: Lavabrook Publishing
Format: Kindle (Kindle Unlimited) & Paperback
Genres: New Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Dystopia
Noted Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Slow Burn, Pregnancy (ugh)
Steam or Spice: Spice
Rating: (Actual: 3.75)
Synopsis: Goodreads
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.
The day Jerusalem falls, Miriam Elmahdy knows her life is over. Houses are burning, the streets run red with blood, and a traitorous army is massacring every last resident. There is no surviving this, especially not once Miriam catches the eye of War himself. But when the massive and terrifying horseman corners Miriam, he calls her his wife, and instead of killing her, he takes her back to his camp.
Now Miriam faces a terrifying future, one where she watches her world burn town by town, and the one man responsible for it all is her seemingly indestructible “husband”. But there’s another side to him, one that’s gentle and loving and dead set on winning her over, and she might not be strong enough to resist.
However, if there’s one thing Miriam has learned, it’s that love and war cannot coexist. And so she must make the ultimate choice: surrender to War and watch humankind fall, or sacrifice everything and stop him.
Review:
War is the second book The Four Horsemen series by Laura Thalassa, and so there may be spoilers for Pestilence below. Spoilers for War will be hidden as normal. Onto the review.
War follows a very similar backbone to Pestilence, and yet is different enough that it feels like a different book. War himself is very different to Pestilence, and his task on Earth, while ultimately the same, is to eradicate through War. As a result of his task, a big difference between book 1 and 2 is that Pestilence and Sara are alone for the majority of their book, whereas that is absolutely not the case for War and Miriam as they are surrounded by War’s army… It definitely made for a different dynamic! Whilst I preferred Pestilence and Sara’s dynamic, I still think that that the difference was absolutely a good thing.
War was the hardest one to read so far, and I’m not sure if that was due to the events of the modern day bringing certain war’s to the forefront of a lot of people’s minds or if it’s just because War feels like the one we have a choice in compared to Pestilence and yet we still choose it… Either way, I definitely struggled just a bit more to lose myself in this fictional story.
That being said, once I finally did manage to convince my brain to separate reality from fiction and I did settle down in for a good time… I really enjoyed it. Miriam and War’s dynamic felt like a good slow burn – not so slow that the first kiss happens 80% of the way through! But a good slow burn where you really understand that Miriam is not into War, but accept’s he’s hot until of course things change…
Onto the pregnancy trope… there are spoilers involved with this section and so I’ve hidden it, but just know that I do not like the pregnancy trope and so that lowered the rating.
I think it’s clear that if I’m saying talking about this trope involves spoilers, then it’s obvious that it’s Miriam who is pregnant and with War’s child. And somehow, despite everything we go through… the possibility of a child fixes everything. Not only that, but there was no consequence of Miriam’s actions later on as she is still pregnant (I get Death had a part to play in that) – but that is not the point. I just don’t like this trope and it is one of those where the author can’t win with me. I’ll dislike it if it fixes everything and I’ll dislike it if it makes everything worse!! It’s just rare that I like this trope…
Ultimately I still really liked War and Miriam’s story – preference to Pestilence and Sara aside – it was worth reading and the epilogue ending did have me want to kick my feet and giggle with happiness… until it didn’t. And then of course I couldn’t wait to meet Famine!
“All creatures can experience pestilence, famine, and death—but war, true war, that is a singularly human experience.”
Reading With Tyler 
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