Book Review: Rogue Rider by Larissa Ione

Title: Rogue Rider (Lords of Deliverance #4)
Author: Larissa Ione
Release Date: November 20th 2012
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Received from the publisher via NetGalley

They're here.

They ride.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Born of a match between good and evil, four siblings stand between hell's minions and everything they want to destroy. They are the Lords of Deliverance, and they have the power to ward off Doomsday . . . or let it ride . . .

Jillian Cardiff came to this remote mountain town to forget the demon attack that almost killed her. Instead, she rescues-and falls for-a gorgeous stranger who has no memory of anything other than his name. Handsome, charming, and protective, Reseph seems like the kind of man whom Jillian can trust. But with hints of a troubling history of his own, he's also the kind of man who can be very dangerous . . .

Reseph may not know why he mysteriously appeared in Jillian's life, but he knows he wants to stay. Yet when Jillian's neighbors are killed, and demon hunters arrive on the scene, Reseph fears that he's putting Jillian in danger. And once it's revealed that Reseph is also Pestilence, the Horseman responsible for ravaging the world, he and Jillian must face the greatest challenge of all: Can they forget the horrors of a chilling past to save the future they both desire?

My Thoughts

So this is going to be one of those reviews that is hard to write because I'm finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts, but in doing so, will probably piss off half the population of Ione fans!

I wanted to love Rogue Rider.
I had high hopes for Reseph and the woman who would be his mate.
I wanted so much for this to be a real bad-boy-gone-good-but-still-a-little-bad-but-finally-comes-good emotional roller coaster of a read.
But what I got was a weak, disjointed, convoluted mish-mash of a story that I found to be unappealing and boring.

Don't get me wrong, there were a few moments of the brilliance that is Larissa Ione's story writing, but around the 45% mark I was bored and stopped reading it for a few days. I couldn't connect with Jillian, I found her to be cold, unlikeable, and far too staid and Reseph was too nice with barely any hint to his Pestilence past - the whole thing just felt off to me.
And once I picked Rogue Rider back up, I had the Aegis, DART, the other Horsemen, the Watchers, Demonica characters and Archangels to add to the story and the whole thing became a juggling act - and I was dropping the pins fast!

At the end of the day, I love Larissa Ione's characters but I just felt that she sacrificed some of Resephs story in order to round out and tie up some ends and create new plot lines.

Will I continue to buy her books? For sure!
Am I already dying to read Reaver's story? Absolutely!

But for me, this was probably her weakest book in the series and only gets a 3.5 stars out of 5 :]