Without Me

The Mind Breaker Accounts Volume 1

Fiction - Paranormal
360 Pages
Reviewed on 06/05/2015
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Ray Simmons for Readers' Favorite

Without Me is Book One of the Mind Breaker Accounts. I'm not familiar with the author, Megan Duke, but I plan to read more of her work. Without Me is a beautiful work of art. You don't read the story; you watch it gently unfold. Without Me jumps around in time and point of view, but there is absolutely no confusion. The protagonist is Denni, a young woman in a happy relationship except for one sad but critical fact. It is all a lie. Imagine if someone could influence your thoughts, your very emotions, make you like or dislike, make you choose or decide things you would never do on your own. Make you even love them. That is a Mind Breaker. Through Denni's story, Megan Duke shows us just how heartbreakingly confusing and frightening such power would be. Step by step, we learn how this power is created and given to seven people in a clinical trial. Then we watch this experiment slowly but surely get out of control.

I don't want to say too much about the details of the story itself because watching it unfold before you is a great part of the pleasure of reading it. Without Me is full of beautiful writing, some of it quite poetic and all of it moving you to a powerful, sad, bittersweet resolution. Without Me is an excellent science fiction novel which takes place right here, right now, in our time. This is one of the things that makes it a little scary.

Charity Tober

Without Me by Megan Duke is book one in the exciting Mind Breaker Accounts paranormal series. The book follows 21-year-old Denni and how she finds herself immersed in a startling new world of mind control. She discovers that the last two years of her life may have been controlled by those around her. Torn between two men, can she really trust her feelings anymore and were they really her genuine feelings to begin with, or was she being controlled again? Readers will be engrossed in Without Me as they follow along with Denni to discover not only how she deals with her controlled past, but also how she can move forward into the future and control her own destiny.

I found Without Me to be an exciting and suspenseful young adult paranormal story. I really connected with Denni and was rooting for her to uncover the true story of her past and move forward by her own will and not be controlled by others. I enjoyed her interactions with both Amos and Jack, but it was frustrating at times how much they used mind control to win her favor. It made me really think about how much we take our free will for granted and how easily we could lose control and be manipulated if that was taken from us. I also loved the book’s cover; I think it really captured the story and will intrigue readers to read the book. I think fans of paranormal and young adult genres are sure to find a lot to like in Without Me by Megan Duke!

Tina Gibbons

In Without Me (The Mind Breaker Accounts Book 1) by Megan Duke, twenty-one-year-old Denni is head over heels in love with Amos, and because she doesn't want to lose him she follows him to another country and leaves everything she knows behind. She works in a mall as an assistant manager, and Jack - who works at her usual coffee stop - catches her attention. She can't stop thinking about Jack, and when Amos is away she starts spending all her free time with him. She discovers that what she's been feeling and her life of the past two years hasn't been real. A secret world of mind control is revealed, and both Amos and Jack belong to a special breed of humans called Mind Breakers. Both men want her and have used their powers to control her to different degrees. Which man should she trust? Which man will she choose? The story is told going back and forth between past and present as Denni relays her tale to a government agent.

Megan Duke has written a good beginning to a paranormal romance series. It outlines a story that has many details to be expanded upon and explained. Without Me has room to grow, and the characters are interesting. By telling the story from different characters' points of view, she lets you get inside each person's head to learn a little more about them, but leaves you with questions about their motives. Amos was villainous, and yet I almost felt sorry for him at points. The moments of intense emotion and physical excitement kept me reading. Just when you think Denni and Jack have overcome their obstacles for a budding romance, a new twist is thrown in the mix and the turbulence begins anew. I was sorry to see the book come to an end, or rather, a pause. I look forward to finding out what happens to the evil Cox, and how Denni's relationship with Jack progresses.