Although the genre is ridiculed as a trivial non-factor, fictional romance books remain the most popular category in the US, accounting for over 50% of book sales and spawning millions of devoted readers. Those focusing on non-Caucasian characters and storylines, also known as multicultural romance, have exploded in popularity since the 1990s and in that era, African-American author Beverly Jenkins created a name and following for injecting long-overdue color and culture into the category of historical romance.

After the success of her first such novel, Night Song, Jenkins found her popularity growing with each new novel (she’s also written more contemporary works). Although she isn’t the only African-American writer in that select field, she’s won multiple awards and commendations for her work and was voted as, according to the nation’s largest online African-American book club (AABLC), one of the Top 50 Favorite African-American writers of the 20th century.

The latest novel from Jenkins, Destiny’s Embrace, should solidify her hold in the category and is an ideal book to start with for those who don’t want to risk getting lost with the context of already-established characters and storylines from her previous 15 novels (they’re not all connected directly to one another, but most of them are friends or relatives of previous heroines and some resurface briefly in subsequent books), set in the late 1800s and transitioning from Philidelphia to California thanks to the story’s central character, Mariah Cooper.

Considered a ‘spinster’ for being 30 and unmarried, the beautiful Ms. Cooper lives a life of rigorous routine as a seamstress in her mother’s Philadelphia dress shop. Raised as an only child…..(click here to read the rest of our opinion of “Destiny’s Embrace”)