This was my favorite book in the series and I am going to gush about it. In the previous three books Death has been described as the worst of the horsemen, and this led me to believe that I would like this tale the most because I always fall for the villain. And there truly is no one more villainous than Thanatos himself. Add to that that the female main character, Lazarus, is something special herself and I couldn’t help favoring this story over all the others. She is not an ordinary mortal woman like the paramores of Pestilence, War, and Famine. From the moment Death meets Lazarus he knows that she has been made specifically for him, as his temptation, his test. This woman does not die from his powers. On top of that, she also cannot be killed by touching his skin as all other mortals do. And every time Death attempts to kill her, she comes back to life in the same way that the horsemen do, healing slowly, regenerating.
Death and Lazarus dance around each other for months in their unique love/hate relationship. Lazarus, like the women before her, is determined to do anything to stop Death and save as many people as she can. Death, the most powerful and stubborn of the horsemen, is determined to succeed where his brothers have failed out of both duty and spite. But succeeding in his purpose would mean the loss of the one thing, the one person he has ever wanted, Lazarus and her love. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll leave it up to you to find out whether or not Thanatos ultimately decided if humanity was worth saving.
One of the big things I really liked about this series was the very vague physical descriptions of the female main characters. With each book I read I wondered if it was intentional. We know that Sara has hazel eyes and brown hair, Miriam has dark brown hair, Ana has curly hair, and we don’t know what Lazarus looks like at all. The physical descriptions diminish with each book and I wonder if it is some kind of metaphor about the four horsemen and the meaning of life. Or it could just be the author’s way of allowing the readers to see themselves as the main character. It is easier to do so when you don’t have a physical description of what they look like.
This is definitely a series that is worth reading and rereading. I know there are a lot of people out there that are skeptical about getting into a book because it is currently popular, but I am telling you that these four are ones that will not disappoint. They are primarily romance novels, dark romance at that, but there is depth in the religious and philosophical tones and themes of loving your fellow man, change, and sacrifice. I would also like to mention that they are some of the most beautiful books that I own. They currently only come in paperback, but the cover art is stunning and the covers have this velvety feel that makes me really enjoy touching them. The font style and size suit the tale, which is something that can make or break a story for me. I can’t wait to have a proper room with a big bookshelf so that I can proudly display them and look at them all the time.
Nonfiction and Nonsense 