Contemporary Romance

Adrienne Byrd

BET/Arabesque

1-58314-292-4

January 2003

(3) Alicia Thomas

PLOT SYNOPSIS: 

For ten years, lawyer Destiny Brockman saw her neighbor, Miles Stafford, as just a good friend. Miles proposes a bet--that each can set the other up on a date with the perfect match. But the long-simmering attraction between them puts Destiny in danger of losing the bet and winning the sweetest kind of love.

REVIEW: 

MY DESTINY chronicles the developing relationship between Destiny Brockman and Miles Stafford. The two meet when Destiny moves in across the hall from Miles. Destiny is making a new start after the deaths of her twin brother and her father. She is a successful attorney who is determined to fulfill all the dreams that were shared between her and her brother. She is not looking for a man because her agenda is set. If she were looking, Miles would be the last brother on the planet that would be her choice.

Miles Stafford fills many roles. He is an accomplished lawyer, a dutiful son and a health fanatic. But his most notable role is player extraordinaire. The women in his life are interchangeable and definitely replaceable. His motto is to live life to the fullest and experience all that it has to offer. This motto is adopted because he believes in the Stafford curse. All the men in the last seven generations of Staffords have died before they turned forty-six. When he first meets Destiny, his first thought is how to covet his neighbor.

The build up in the beginning leads you to expect that the chase will be eventful. The growth of the characters is interesting reading. But the five-year jumps in the timeline cause continuity problems even though it is necessary to address the Stafford curse as Miles approaches his forty-sixth birthday. You never really see the romance develop. Each time the reader starts to settle into the rhythm of the characters there is a jump in time.

The secondary characters are carefully depicted in the beginning leading one to believe they are important to this romance. Their respective best friends add some humor and color. Because of their mothers’ friendship and desire to see their children happy, Ms. Bryd leads you to expect a lot of meddling as well as scheming but it’s just not there. It would have added more flavor and depth to the story if these characters were used more.

MY DESTINY is an interesting novel. The ending leaves you with a few of questions but that doesn’t detract from the overall story.

alicia@romanceincolor.net (27th November 2002)