War by Laura Thalassa is the second installment in the Four Horseman series. Miraim knows that the world is slowly ending. The second horsemen has been released upon the world and he’s moving city to city destroying everyone with his army. When he comes to her town, she does what anyone else would do and has done, tries to kill him. Sadly, she fails because he can’t be killed. Miriam is spared by War himself declaring her his wife. She is taken to his camp and forced to travel with his army while they murder and kill every human in sight. Miraim wants to hate him for what he’s doing but she somehow gets close to him, close enough to show him that humans aren’t as bad as War thinks. Will she succeed in getting him to stop his mission to wipe out everyone?

I was enchanted by the first book, Pestilence. This second book is just as good in my opinion. I am still just in love with the concept of this series. Humans have a tendency to war with one another over many different things such as land, resources, religion, you name it there has probably been a war or fight over it. War talks about this. He talks about how he is the closest of his four bothers to understanding humans because war/conflict is in human hearts. Humans don’t seem to learn from their mistakes, they would rather kill one another and take what they want. War thinks that humans are inherently destructive. As a reader, this is pretty thought provoking because while War is pretty on point when you take a snapshot of human history, its not all we are. Miriam teaches War that humans are more that angry warmongers.

One critique I have about this is I got very Game of Thrones vibes when reading it. There was a lot of barbarian style warring with one another and the rising of the dead to fight in the army just like in Game of Thrones. I’m not saying it’s bad, i’m just saying that it has some very similar vibes. I really liked Game of Thrones so it wasn’t an issue for me, but I can see others saying differently.

Character wise, I think Miriam is pretty badass. She tries to take out a horsemen knowing that she probably won’t make it but she tries anyway. She refuses to give in and take the luxurous way out when she gets dragged to the camp but chooses to stay in the camp with everyone else. I also really liked that when each human who survived the raid chooses whether to join the army or die, she refuses to join and is willing to die. She only doesn’t because War won’t let her die. She never actually pledges herself to War and his cause. She uses this to her advantage and tries to help all those that she can during each raid. It made me root for her to help others and to get War to change his mind about everything. I wanted them to work out because of her.

If you liked the 1st book in this series, you will like this one as well. I would recommend it if you are looking to continue the dark romance from the first one. Anyone read it? What did you think of this one or even the series in general?