Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: War
SERIES: The Four Horsemen
AUTHOR: T. A. Chase
LENGTH: 172 Pages
BLURB:
Fighting the battle in his own heart, War must find peace before he can find love.
War destroyed an entire tribe of innocent people when he was human, all because his best friend lied to him. His guilt brings him a destiny he never planned. As the Red Horseman, War spends the centuries creating battles and wars between countries to restore balance in the world. While he accepts the job to atone for his sins, he wishes he didn’t cause men to kill each other. War lives a solitary life, without hope of ever finding forgiveness.
From the mountains of Afghanistan to the plains of Kansas, and to the steppes of Mongolia, Russell Heinz searches for peace. He’s battling survivor’s guilt after having two members of his army unit die within feet of him. His own mind shuts down, and Russell spends time in a mental ward, dreaming of a man with blood-red hair and all-black eyes. Unsure if the man is real or just a figment of his wounded mind, Russell heads to Mongolia, looking for forgiveness of his own.
Separately, Russell and War fight their own personal demons. Together, they find peace in a love tested by the fires of battle.
REVIEW:
Today I’m bringing you the next in my series of reviews on The Four Horsemen books from T. A. Chase. On to book two, War. In this installment the author brings us the next of the Four Horsemen, War.
Before War became one of the four horsemen, he was a tribal chieftain named Baqir in what is now Saudi Arabia. He led a peaceful tribe for more than 10 years, but then his best friend came to him with the murdered body of a young girl, who had also been savagely raped prior to her death. His friend told him that he had seen a man from the neighboring tribe commit the crime and when a second dead child is found, Baqir is talked into going to war with the other tribe. When everyone in the other tribe is killed, except for a few children that got away, Baqir finally learns the truth and kills his best friend, who it turns out was the one that raped and killed the girls in the first place.
Now it is centuries later. Baqir is no more, now he is War. He is tasked with sparking wars around the globe to protect mankind from even greater evils. In the mountains of Afghanistan, War meets a young American soldier named Russell. Something draws the two men together. When two of Russell’s friends are killed right in front of him and he is drenched with their blood and the brain matter of one of them, Russell cracks. Can War help him get past his breakdown? Can Russell help War get past the guilt he has carried for centuries?
I liked this book better than book one, but the story still didn’t reach out and grab me and while I felt it was good, it could have been better. I liked it a little better than Pestilence, which I rated as OK because of the many blatant editing issues. I’m going to say this current one was Good/Average. I’m hoping the trend continues and book three and four are better.
I’m frankly a little disappointed so far because these books could be sooo much better with some rework and re-editing. This one, like Pestilence, needed a little more oomph, and the characters read a little too flat for my satisfaction.
RATING: 
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