Death by Laura Thalassa

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Title: Death
Author: Laura Thalassa
Series: The Four Horsemen #4
Published by: Indie
Release Date: November 9, 2021
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 519
Genres: Apocalyptic, Contemporary Fantasy
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 1, Lenoreo's 2023 Finishing the Series Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon
My rating:

Blurb:

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.

He’s known by many names: Thanatos. Horseman. God’s last angel. And then, of course, there's the one I’m all too familiar with—

Death.

The day Death comes to Lazarus Gaumond’s town and kills everyone in one fell swoop, the last thing he expects to see is a woman left alive and standing. But Lazarus has her own extraordinary gift: she cannot be killed—not by humans, not by the elements, not by Death himself.

She is the one soul Death doesn’t recognize. The one soul he cannot pry free from her flesh. Nor can he ignore the unsettling desire he has for her. Take her. He wants to, desperately. And the longer she tries to stop him from his killing spree, the stronger the desire becomes.

When Lazarus crosses paths with the three other horsemen, an unthinkable situation leads to a terrible deal: seduce Death, save the world. A hopeless task, made all the worse by the bad blood between her and Thanatos. But Death’s attraction to her is undeniable, and try though she might, Lazarus cannot stay away from that ancient, beautiful being and his dark embrace.

The end is here. Humankind is set to perish, and not even the horsemen can stop Death from fulfilling his final task.

Only Lazarus can.

My Review:

3.5 stars — Well I definitely enjoyed this one more than Famine, but in the end I was left feeling only somewhat satisfied.  Honestly, I kind of saw at least elements of the “solution” coming from early on, so it really just felt like a long ride to somewhere I was impatiently waiting to get to.  I feel like I might have enjoyed this series more if each book were shorter, because I’m not sure I got enough extra in all those extra pages to make it worthwhile as far as my time.

Lazarus was an interesting heroine, with many similar traits to the other heroines.  I wonder if I would have been more excited about her if I’d gotten some flashbacks to her life with her family and what shaped her.  As with all the other heroines, she was strangely dedicated to the survival of humanity, usually at the expense of herself.  I…mostly bought that.  Maybe because of the little we know of her upbringing?  Still kind of a stretch, but whatever.  She’s extremely dedicated and self-sacrificing.  At least I didn’t feel like she guarded her reluctant love from Death in quite the dogged way of the others.

Death was more intriguing to me just because he was the most removed from humanity it seems.  He didn’t partake in any of the human things, and so had a longer way to go to connect.  But he was also strangely vulnerable and compassionate, and I enjoyed those bits of him.  At least I got his confused feeling about it all, and I liked seeing that insight into him — how he could see what he was taking the souls to, so he just kept performing his duties.

And they were interesting with one another.  At least unlike Famine and Ana, I felt like I kind of got more of a connection than just the physical between them.

As for the overarching plot of the 4 horsemen and the whole what was the point?  I’m not sure I quite get it.  Like, for me, it got lost along the way.  It felt like “God” was playing at something with them, and I’m not sure why?  Maybe I’m just not in the right frame of mind.

On a side note, there were some major timeline disconnects in this one — like the book only took place over a year as far as I can tell, but there would be times she said she’d been fighting Death for 2 years…or that she had Ben for a year.  Not everyone notices or cares, but if that kind of thing bugs you, beware.

So yeah.  Even though this book was an improvement over the last, I probably should have saved myself the hassle and stopped after 2 books when it was clear it wasn’t quite a match for me.  Ah well, lessons learned.