Riders

Rossi, Veronica. Riders. Book 1 of the Riders duology. 2016. 384p. ISBN 9780765382542. 658 mins. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Gideon Blake’s father has always been his role model, A soldier in the U.S. Army, his father instilled in him discipline and a logical mind. But when his father suffered a heart attack and died while on the roof of a house they were working on, Gideon lost his compass and direction. Graduating from high school, he decides to join the Army like his father and, following basic training, enters the U.S. Army Ranger school. During his fifth parachute jump, Gideon’s main parachute does not open, nor does the emergency parachute. The odds of this happening are millions to one. Gideon manages to deploy his emergency parachute, but it is too late to avoid crashing down to the ground. Gideon hits the ground so hard that he dies from the impact.

He is revived by paramedics and transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he is told he will never be a Ranger due to the gravity of his injuries. He is informed that it will take at least six months for him to heal. Transported back home to California to recuperate, he notices a strange metal bracelet on his arm, and no one seems to know where it came from. He also heals very quickly. It’s only been a day back home and he can already walk without a crutch. Gideon wonders what happened to him.

A day later, at a party hosted by his sister at her residence on the university campus, he meets Daryn, an intriguing girl who begs him to leave with her at once. Puzzled, Gideon refuses. The party is crashed by three people itching for a fight, and when Gideon perceives that his sister is threatened he fights back, only to realize that his opponents are not humans, and one of them can even control his thoughts. Chasing after them, Gideon stumbles upon Daryn who had fled the party and is hiding in his Jeep. She reveals to him that he is War, the embodiment of one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, and that he must help save the world from the Kindred, demons who joined Satan in his rebellion against God but then eventually rebelled against Satan too. This Kindred seek to open a gateway to control a new world and escape their hunters. Daryn, as a Seeker, has that key. Armed with a cool sword and a fiery horse, Gideon and Daryn must now travel the world and find the other horsemen before the Kindred closes in.

Now in custody of the U.S. government, Gideon must convince the powers that be that they have to release him before it is too late. But how do you convince someone that you are one of the standard bearers of the Bible’s last chapter before it is too late?