Review: Empathy by Ker Dukey

Synopsis

Blake

I am a brother

I am a police detective

I am a contract killer

I don’t want to love

I don’t want to feel

I don’t want … EMPATHY.

They say some people are born with decreased activity in the front central lobe causing them a deficiency in empathy. Maybe that’s true about me but whether I was born this way or created in a moment of evil, empathy was something I didn’t possess until her green eyes met mine in the mirror and I couldn’t take her life.

I didn’t want to feel, didn’t want this woman in my life complicating how I lived but she was there at every turn. Sent to haunt me for my sins. Her light so bright she provoked a shadow from everyone she touched. When a job turns bad quickly altering my life forever I’m forced to feel. When nothing is making sense I’m forced to face truths I never would recover from. When life drowns you in its cruelty you don’t know which way the current will drag you or who you’ll become once you re-surface.

Melody:

I was a daughter

I was a student

I was a victim

Did I have his love?

Did I make him feel?

Did I have his empathy?

When the actions of a soulless killer forces sorrow into my veins I never dreamed the man healing my wounds would be the one to leave the worst scar. His love would scar my soul. Scars are permanent; I will never feel the relief from them. Will I learn to live with them, remember why I have them and learn never to let him close enough to inflict more? Will I eventually cover them… like tattoos coating them with new memories, new love and new starts? I didn’t know these answers because the pain was too suffocating, the only thing I knew was they will always be under the surface lingering. He had scars too, from his sins. There is nothing that can cover them, they were too deep, too ugly, too dark and they marked us both forever.

Review

Empathy by Ker Dukey is phenomenal dark romance,  story that will keep you guessing till the very end. Dukey writes it in a way that you're pulled in and need  to keep turning the pages to see what is going to happen. As to be expected by now, Dukey has given us three complex characters, Melody and brother's Blake and Ryan. Tragic circumstances have lead them together. Melody and Ryan as friends, while Melody and Blake have this dance of attraction, hate, and passion.

What unfolds leaves you reeling and going "what?" as you read this book. Empathy is a story you have to read. There are so many twists, turns and revelations, you don't know what's going to happen next. It has been a long time since I've read a book that offered such a psychological  element to it. This is what I love about it. It's not a predictable story whatsoever. Dukey leads you down one path before she turns you around and pulls the rug from under you.

Ker Dukey is gifted when it comes to the written word. Empathy proves it once again. It's  going to be a long time before I stop thinking about this book. Empathy should be the next book you read.

Rating:
Five-Stars