The Empathy Series by Ker Dukey
Empathy
When it comes to the start of a new series, there are two ways you can play it – or at least I think there are, you can lure the reader in and slowly piece by piece reveal the fruits of your labour or if you’re Ker Dukey you can smack your readers right between the eyes with a story and characters that will knock them on their ass!!
This is Ker Dukey at her indefinable best!
So let’s get on to what the book is about, I’ll start with Melody.
A well healed, beautiful young woman who although only being 19 years old, she has experience pain and heartache. Melody is in college but her life is destined to change and to shortly turn in a direction that she could never have though possible.
Returning home should have been straight forward but then again, this is Ker Dukey we are talking about!
The other main character is Blake and he blew my mind!
He is all kinds of crazy, a product of a childhood that was completely screwed up. He is plagued by some gigantic demons and just beginning to understand the intensity of those demons was emotionally draining.
I really felt for him from the age of 18 he has been irrevocably changed and while he has learnt to accept that, it doesn’t mean that now at the age of 25 living with it gets any easier.
But his life changes completely when he meets Melody.
I could say so much about this book but I think I would be doing you a disservice, this is the start of a series that is destined for greatness.
Empathy, should be read with an open mind, so check any preconceptions in at the front cover and open the book and your heart and mind to the masterful deviancy that only Ker Dukey can guide you through… it is glorious – so enjoy the ride!!!!!
Desolate
This is Ryan’s story and what a story it is.
If you have read Empathy then this is the story that you have been waiting for since the conclusion of that novel, if you haven’t then please stop now and read it!
Ryan has spent almost twenty years locked in the psych facility, if they thought keeping him there would change him then they are sorely misguided but then again what did you expect?
Blake and Melody are leading what they can call fairly normal lives, until the day that Blake learns that Ryan has been released. He makes a decision not to tell Melody about Ryan but to monitor Ryan’s movements as best he can., never a good move keeping stuff from the missus Blake – because the rift it can cause has the potential to be catastrophic.
But Melody has her own worries, she senses that her daughter Cereus is pulling away and with the issues that are pulling her marriage apart, she is at breaking point.
After gaining his freedom, Ryan has fixated on Cereus. And I think my favourite fruit-loop gets more than he bargains for when he discovers that she is a lot like him.
Ryan was a belter of a character – a no holds barred head- case!! Please don’t get your hopes up that he is suddenly joined the happy brigade because believe me you may be disappointed. His madness is just glorious too read, he had me captivated!
His language and mannerisms were just pitched to complete perfection – he really didn’t give a damn what other thought of him and gave no quarter with regards to the devastation that he left in his wake wherever he goes.
The book is quite possibly in a class of its own or perhaps I should say that Ryan is definitely in a class of his own!!
Superb Ker Dukey – simply superb!!
Vacant
There are some books and some characters that make you take a good look at what and who they are and shake your head and in this the last of Ker Dukey’s Empathy series, I was doing a tad more than just shaking my head – I was left scratching it in awe!
Brian and Melody are trying to come to terms with Ryan’s death.
Cereus on the other hand refuses to accept that Ryan is gone and her subconscious has her holding on to the fact that if he really was gone, she would feel it in her soul, because the connection between them is tangible that without him, her heart may as well stop beating.
Some may consider that the relationship that has evolved and grown between Cereus and Ryan is in some way taboo, I don’t see it that way – I think she has given him the opportunity to show who he really can be.
He cares more for her than he does for himself and in that respect he earned my respect!
Ker, has dished up yet another stunning instalment of what has to be described as one of the most primal and visceral series on the market.
This is a book that takes love and multiplies it tenfold, it opens your eyes to the fact that no two people love in the same way and that the ability to love is not inherent, we learn to love from the love we see around us and because of that we allow our love to evolve.
This is a book that opened my eyes to the shades of life that would normally pass not only me but most people by and for that I have to say I found the story enthralling.
Deadly
This is a short addition to the Empathy series, and it is just as f**ked up as the previous books.
I thought I have read almost all the crazy that one author could possibly include in a story but I underestimated Ker Dukey because this takes completely crazy to a whole new level!
Ryan is still on the run and Cereus is still with him, and as much as the two of them are doing all they can to survive, Ryan also is desperately trying to help Cereus to stay centred and focussed on the here and now.
Cereus is a complicated read. She struggled to remain lucid much of the time and her black out episodes are a cause for concern when it comes to Ryan trying to keep the two of them out of the reach of the authorities. But she knows in her addled brain that she loves Ryan, but her paranoia means that she is sure that he doesn’t feel the same way.
As much as Ryan is the “saner” of the two of them, I have to say that the way he plays with Cereus’s feelings really is a measure of the man, he is completely twisted.
I really felt for Blake in all of this, he is desperate to help his daughter but by helping the two of them evade the authorities he is contributing to the body count, which shows no sign of letting up.
How much longer can he live with the situation?
And has his attempts to keep her safe, left it too late to save her?