Review: Destiny's Embrace by Beverly Jenkins

Destiny's Embrace

Beverly Jenkins

Avon

Jan 29, 2013

384 pgs.

Gentleman Seeks Housekeeper. Must be willing to travel.

Desperate for another life away from Philadelphia, headstrong and beautiful Mariah Cooper answers an advertisement for a housekeeper at the other end of the continent. Waiting in California is the most breathtaking--and arrogant--man she has ever met . . . and he'd like nothing better than for Mariah to go back home!

Logan Yates has run Destiny, the family ranch, since he was a boy. He doesn't need this Eastern miss his stepmother hired, though his home's chaotic state suggests otherwise. Still, he's secretly pleased that Mariah gives as good as she gets--and he must fight the urge to take her in his arms and kiss her whenever she proudly stands her ground. But when he's in danger of losing her, Logan will have to choose between pride . . . and his heart's true desire.

 Destiny’s Embrace is the first book I have ever read by Beverly Jenkins which is crazy, since she has been around for awhile and her name keeps popping up everywhere.  But, I’ll tell you a little secret; I don’t really read multicultural romance.  I mean, I’ll read interracial romance by the truckload.  But when it comes to both of the characters having the same ethnic background, I’m put off.  I think it’s because the last multicultural I read was back in the late eighties/early nineties when they still made the characters talk like what they (theauthor) thought all the different ethnicities sounded like., instead of how we actually talk.  We talk like regular people!  Well, some of us.  Anyway, I’m getting too carried away with this, onto the review.

                Mariah Cooper has spent her whole life being abused by her mother, and all because of her eyes.  Every time her mother looks at her, she is reminded of a man who left her with a baby to raise to live with his other family many miles away.

Mariah has tried to stay on her mother’s good side, but nothing she does is ever good enough.  When Mariah has had all she can take, she escapes to her aunt’s house.  It is there that she comes upon an advertisement in the paper for a housekeeper out West.  With no means of support, Mariah takes the job under the guise of a widow.

Logan Yates has no idea what’s in store for him when he takes on Mariah as his housekeeper, expecting her to hightail it back from where she came once she see’s the job in store for her; Logan buries his lustful thoughts.  But Mariah is determined to stick it out and make a new life for herself in the American West. 

Mariah is starting to carve out a new life for herself and trying to ignore the feelings Logan Yates brings to the table when all hell breaks loose.

What follows is a very entertaining story between a woman with nowhere else to turn and a man who likes his life just the way it is.

I loved reading Destiny’s Embrace!  I can’t believe I have passed over Jenkins’s books in the past.  No more.  I am going to have to delve into her back list and start reading.