Title: Ten (My Brother’s Best Friend)
Author: Ker Dukey
Released: December 20, 2015
Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs
Photographer: Clyph Jean Philippe
Model: Kyle Nelson
Ten years old I fell in love
Ten years was the price of that love
Ten years later our world’s re-collide
Alexandria (Alex)
My brother Jonah was possessive when it came to the things he owned; this unfortunately included the people in his life. The forbidden love between his best friend and me was just that… forbidden.
Our families were from different walks of life and as a sheriff’s daughter being with a Moore’s kid would never be tolerated. To my parents their son and Dalton Moore were on different paths and their friendship would end as soon as college began but it was my brother who had a craving for trouble. He was always looking for danger, committing petty crimes and getting away with it because Dalton would take the fall, blackening his already stained name. When Jonah found out we broke the rules by loving each other, his consequences impacted us all with immeasurable suffering.
Betrayal comes with a debt and it would be paid by all of us.
One with their heart,
one with their mind
and one would pay in blood.
Alexandria (Alex)
Soul mates,
not everyone believes they exist, but that’s because they have never met theirs.
How can someone who has never felt a connection so fierce, that you feel the power of it in every molecule of your being, believe such an thing exists?
How can you explain to them that the jolt that ignites every nerve ending in your body is like the sky crackling and exploding with lightening before it joins with the earth for the briefest yet most magnificent of moments, displaying the true force of nature’s power?
When that one person you were created with, comes into your life, you know without any doubt that they’re yours and you are theirs. It’s nature in its truest form. There is nothing more natural then falling in love with your soul mate.
True love Is like an out of body experience, you transcend before crashing back into your body seeing life through new eyes.
You don’t just find your soul mate; you reunite with them with intensity so powerful nothing can stop it. A love so potent you feel it in the atmosphere, and you see it in their aura.
Dalton Moore was my soul mate and I lived to love him.
He was in my every childhood memory.
Every dream I conjured.
He was every good decision I made…
But for him…
I was in his every childhood memory.
Every nightmare he slipped into.
I was the worst decision he ever made.
I don’t think my stomach has been in knots since the beginning of the story until the very end like it did as I was reading Ten. There was so much rage and heartache to deal with, and I didn’t know how anything was ever going to be resolved between Alex and Dalton because all they seemed able to do was throw around venomous words and hold on to the betrayal and devastation they both felt at the hands of one another.
It’s crazy how one night can change the course of so many lives, especially two people who felt it down to their core that they were meant to be together…soul mates from their first encounter.
What happens to Alex and Dalton solidifies the idea that regardless of how much love exists between them, sometimes obstacles and interfering people control how things play out and until that control is taken back, their lives won’t ever be the same.
Ker Dukey does a fantastic job of illustrating Dalton’s dark transformation after he pays for someone else’s crimes. As Ten, he is nothing like the 18 year old who thought he had his whole life ahead of him with the love of his life by his side. Ten is dangerous, destructive, and full of rage and readers understand everything that he feels because Dukey allows us into his mind, putting his past and present into perspective, forcing us to understand why he treats Alex the way that it does even though it guts us almost as much as it does Alex.
The switch from present to past works well because it puts all of the devastating pieces together to answer the questions as to how everything went so wrong and what it cost both Dalton and Alex.
It’s not an easy read quite simply because Dalton and Alex’s situation, even ten years later, is raw and all consuming. The emotions that both display resonate off of the pages and readers can’t help but feel their anguish and bitterness due to the betrayal and lies of others.
I’m so pumped for Six’s story – I loved how he had Dalton’s back and what he was willing to sacrifice to protect him and Alex. I definitely need him to get his life back in some way that he can be happy…I know it will be an emotional journey to get there, but I can’t wait to see what happens.
A complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 Poison Apples
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