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Destiny #8
Return to Destiny
RETURN TO DESTINY in this new short novel by USA Today bestselling author Toni Blake which proves it’s never too late to come back home.
Cara Collins thought her first love would last forever. But when Tyler broke her heart and left town the very next day, her world crumbled – adding another crippling loss in a long line of them. Ten years later, though, she’s worked to build a life for herself centered on her hometown of Destiny, Ohio – the community that has never let her down. When an autumn day leads her on a mission to rent donkeys for a community event, she has no idea she’s made a wrong turn until she’s suddenly face to face with the boy who once abandoned her – all grown up now, sexy as sin, and bearing no resemblance to a donkey whatsoever.
Tyler Fleet never planned to come home to Destiny, but when his career as an NFL quarterback fell apart before he ever got to prove his talent on the field, the lake house he built outside his hometown seems as good a place as any to lick his wounds. He never dreamed the girl he reluctantly left behind would come walking back into his life by accident, nor did he expect her to help him discover a new purpose in life by cajoling him to take over as the coach for his old high school football team.
Now leaves aren’t the only thing falling in Destiny – Tyler has fallen for Cara all over again. It’s becoming a season of miracles – both on the gridiron and behind closed doors. But after his hasty departure all those years ago, can Tyler ever regain her trust? And can Cara count on him to stay this time, or will he always be lured by a bigger life than the one their small town has to offer?
Cara Collins thought her first love would last forever. But when Tyler broke her heart and left town the very next day, her world crumbled – adding another crippling loss in a long line of them. Ten years later, though, she’s worked to build a life for herself centered on her hometown of Destiny, Ohio – the community that has never let her down. When an autumn day leads her on a mission to rent donkeys for a community event, she has no idea she’s made a wrong turn until she’s suddenly face to face with the boy who once abandoned her – all grown up now, sexy as sin, and bearing no resemblance to a donkey whatsoever.
Tyler Fleet never planned to come home to Destiny, but when his career as an NFL quarterback fell apart before he ever got to prove his talent on the field, the lake house he built outside his hometown seems as good a place as any to lick his wounds. He never dreamed the girl he reluctantly left behind would come walking back into his life by accident, nor did he expect her to help him discover a new purpose in life by cajoling him to take over as the coach for his old high school football team.
Now leaves aren’t the only thing falling in Destiny – Tyler has fallen for Cara all over again. It’s becoming a season of miracles – both on the gridiron and behind closed doors. But after his hasty departure all those years ago, can Tyler ever regain her trust? And can Cara count on him to stay this time, or will he always be lured by a bigger life than the one their small town has to offer?
211 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 24, 2022
8 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Toni Blake
46 books1,193 followersToni Blake's love of writing began when she won an essay contest in the fifth grade. Soon after, she penned her first novel, nineteen notebook-pages long, and announced to her mother over breakfast one day that she was going to be a writer when she grew up. Since then, Toni has become the author of more than forty contemporary romance novels. Her work has been excerpted in Cosmo, she's been a recipient of the Kentucky Women Writers Fellowship and she's been a nominee for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. In addition to being a two-time finalist for the Rita Award, she's received both the National Readers Choice Award and the Booksellers Best Award. Toni lives in the Midwest with her husband and enjoys traveling, crafts, and being outdoors.
Toni has also written under the name Toni Blair.
Photo: Cassandra Stella
Toni has also written under the name Toni Blair.
Photo: Cassandra Stella
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 25, 2022
DNF @ 20%
- 2nd chance (sucks bullets IMO)
- HS sweethearts
- Both were each other’s first
- Hero leaves to pursue Football career
- 10 Year separation
- Selfish, immature/prick Hero
- Doormat Heroine
- Hero not celibate. He f**d around a lot and even lived with OW for a while
- Heroine dated though I didn’t get far enough to find out if she had sex with anyone else.
- Hero returns home a loser because he didn’t make it in the big leagues
- Heroine resists at first and then of course, the lady bits come into play and all is forgiven.
- Grovel? What grovel?
- Read this trope too many times to count. Rinse, Read, Repeat. No Thanks.
“Cara, I know you can’t stay, but since you’re here…I’ve spent the last ten years wanting to talk to you. Wanting to tell you how sorry I am. For the way I ended things with you. I shouldn’t have let my parents push me to do it. It was a huge mistake.”
“I’ve wanted to reach out to you so many times,” he went on before she could reply.
“Then why didn’t you?” she heard herself ask. Oops. Yikes. What happened to “I got over it”? Honesty had just run blindly over coolness without even stopping to look back.
“Because you told me that night you never wanted to see me again,” he replied. “I took you at your word.”
“Well, you’d just dumped me when I least expected it,” she reminded him.
“I went about it all wrong,” he said. “The timing, the place—it was awful and I know that. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was confused and my head was a mess.”
Part of her still wanted to rein this situation in, act above it all—but he was on the verge of rewriting history here, so irritation took hold instead. “It was a long time ago, but my main memory of that night is that you made yourself very clear. You didn’t strike me as confused at all. I left there knowing very certainly that I’d been dumped and you were ready to move on with your new life.”
“Would you quit calling it that?” he said, sounding as offended as if the conversation had occurred just yesterday. “I didn’t dump you.”
“Of course you did. And if I’m remembering correctly, you didn’t like that word back then, either, but that’s what breaking up with somebody is—dumping them, being done with them.”
“I was a kid and I handled the whole thing poorly.”
“We were both kids—but that doesn’t make what we had nothing. We were crazy about each other. We made each other promises. It mattered.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I’m not trying to say it didn’t. You were everything to me then. And I guess an apology ten years later doesn’t count for much. I guess I should have reached out to you long before now. Maybe I was afraid you’d just tell me to go to hell.”
“Well, if the fear of me not being nice was enough to keep you from it, it must not have felt very important. When my mother died, though, I thought maybe then I would hear from you.”
“I know. I wanted to reach out when I heard. I wanted to let you know I cared.”
“At one time,” she reminded him quietly, “she thought of you like a son.”
“Yeah. I remember.” He sounded sad, maybe a little ashamed. “But it still came down to thinking you wouldn’t want me there. I wouldn’t have wanted to make a hard day for you even worse.”
“I can understand that,” she told him. “But for future reference, it turns out that when you lose your mother, condolences from pretty much anyone are welcome, especially from anyone who knew her and cared about her.”
Next to her, he nodded and said, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve made huge mistakes with you that I can never fix.”
He hit the nail on the head with that one, for sure.
So at this point she figured, what the hell, she might as well just keep on telling him the truth. “Did you know your father asked me to come talk to you?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Oh my God, Cara, I’m so sorry. That was so out of line.” He shook his head again. “I love my dad, but man, the guy never knows when to stay out of my business.”
“I declined,” she informed him. “I told him I didn’t know you anymore and had nothing to say to you. But since the universe brought me here anyway, maybe I should tell you what I think.”
He looked nervous. She’d already given him an earful, after all. In fact, this was probably a fine time to shut up and leave. But he finally said, “Okay,” and that took her back to what-the-hell.
“You’re not washed up,” she informed him. “No one is washed up at twenty-eight.”
At this, however, he simply let out a cynical laugh. “Tell that to the NFL.”
“I’m not talking about the NFL. I’m talking about figuring out what comes next.”
“Cara, the only thing I know how to do is play football.” Up to now, he’d seemed…well, in a better state of mind than his father had suggested, but now she suddenly heard him sounding defeated.
“Don’t you have a college degree in something?” she pointed out.
He released another big sigh. “Communications,” he said as if it was the foulest word a person could utter. “In preparation for a job in the media after I retired from football. Problem being that you pretty much have to have had a career for anybody to want you for that. Six years in the NFL and I was on the field for just over fifteen minutes of game time total.” He gave his head a short shake. “I’m not a hot property in football or communications. I’m not a hot property anymore period.”
“Look, I understand it sucks to get as far as you did and then get kicked around by injuries and fate. So you have a right to take some time to lick your wounds and get over that. But as for this business of being washed up, it’s silly. Do you think I wanted to figure out how to keep going after my father died when I was twelve? Do you think I wanted to figure out what came next when you pulled the rug out from under me when I was eighteen, when I was suddenly left behind to care for my sick mother with no future prospects? Do you think I might have wanted to give up after my mom passed away when I was twenty-two and not sure how I would even make a living? Everyone has those moments when it feels like all is lost and they don’t know what to do. And then they rise up and move beyond it.
The lucky thing for you is, you never have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to. You can take care of your family, and I suspect your dad is still only on the Destiny Police Force because he’d be bored otherwise. Or you can work—at anything you want, anywhere you want. You can do anything you please. Because you’re not washed up at twenty-eight—you’re a multi-millionaire at twenty-eight. The vast majority of people in the world, people who are out there working at jobs they do or don’t love, to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads, would trade places with you in a heartbeat.
So if I were you, I’d give myself a very limited amount of time to get over my disappointments—and then I’d start counting my blessings and figuring out what I can do with them to put some good into the world.”
“I’m sorry if that was too blunt. And on that note, I really should go.”
He stood up, too. “Cara,” he said. “It’s okay. That you told me what you think. I actually always loved that about you. You didn’t feed me bullshit—you kept things real, always. And this is probably going to sound a little weird, all things considered, but…”
“Yeah?” she asked cautiously when he trailed off.
“Can I see you again?”
“No,” she said softly. “I wish you all the best, I truly do. But what we had ended a long time ago.”
He pushed out another sigh, leaning back in his chair. “I guess I don’t blame you if you can’t forgive me.”
“This isn’t about forgiveness,” she assured him. “But as a wise woman told me just last night, it’s good to forgive, but another thing to forget. And the way things ended between us…it just changed how I saw you, how I felt about you as a person. Take care of yourself, Tyler. I know you’ll bounce back from this and figure out how to move forward again.”
----
He’d spent his whole adulthood so far being fawned over by fake women overly consumed with social standing and material things, and who seemed to have no goals in life other than being in awe of the nearest available pro athlete. And sure, at first it was fun, exciting, flattering—until it had sunk in that they were after fame and money more than anything honest or real.
----
“How come you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asked then without prelude.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“I asked first.”
How to answer? “I’ve dated plenty of guys, but…I guess no one’s made me feel…” Like you did. Okay, whoa—she needed to tread carefully here. “No one’s made me feel…the right way. You know.” Crap. She might as well have said “like you did.” She was a blubbering fool. Move on. Fast.
“Your turn.”
“I lived with someone for a while.”
The words were a dagger to her heart. Which was ridiculous—it had been ten years, and of course a hot pro football player would have women aplenty—but it still ripped her down the center to find out he’d had a relationship more serious than theirs. Despite her having been open to it, that just wasn’t the case for her. She tried to cover how gutted she was by just staring out over the fifty-yard-line and replying, “Oh?” Light and airy. Like she wasn’t affected at all. She had no idea if she’d pulled it off—but again, sometimes keeping it real was about remembering to protect yourself a little and not give everything away.
“Yeah,” he said. “She was the glamorous type.”
Great. Everything I’m not.
“But it was all smoke and mirrors. Turned out she was mostly into me for superficial reasons—money and prestige.”
She’d always thought that would be the one downside of wealth—never knowing if you were being appreciated for yourself or your bank account. “I’m sorry to hear that. How did it end?”
“She cheated on me,” he said on a slight laugh.
Cara turned to face him. “That’s funny?”
“Only because when I found out, I realized I didn’t care all that much, and it almost felt like a way out.” He stopped, screwing up his expression a little, clearly thinking back. “Truth is, I guess I was into the glamour for a little while, too. And she seemed like…the type of woman I was supposed to be into, so it was kind of superficial for me, too. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth. Give a guy too much money and attention at a young age and it can mess with your head, make you lose sight of what matters. I guess the good part is—I figured it out after that and took a step back. I quit partying or hanging out with people I didn’t really like. And I got a lot pickier about who I dated.”
Her heart was in her throat as she asked, still trying desperately to sound light, “Anyone good come along?”
He shrugged. “Some. But guess it’s the same as for you—nobody special.”
----
“Over the last ten years, I’ve been to a lot of places and done a lot of things with a lot of different people, all of it trying to…you know, get somewhere. Live life. Live up to my potential and all that. And yet somehow, here I am, sitting in the place that’s meant the most to me”—that was when he turned to meet her gaze—“with the only girl I’ve ever truly loved.”
- 2nd chance (sucks bullets IMO)
- HS sweethearts
- Both were each other’s first
- Hero leaves to pursue Football career
- 10 Year separation
- Selfish, immature/prick Hero
- Doormat Heroine
- Hero not celibate. He f**d around a lot and even lived with OW for a while
- Heroine dated though I didn’t get far enough to find out if she had sex with anyone else.
- Hero returns home a loser because he didn’t make it in the big leagues
- Heroine resists at first and then of course, the lady bits come into play and all is forgiven.
- Grovel? What grovel?
- Read this trope too many times to count. Rinse, Read, Repeat. No Thanks.
“Cara, I know you can’t stay, but since you’re here…I’ve spent the last ten years wanting to talk to you. Wanting to tell you how sorry I am. For the way I ended things with you. I shouldn’t have let my parents push me to do it. It was a huge mistake.”
“I’ve wanted to reach out to you so many times,” he went on before she could reply.
“Then why didn’t you?” she heard herself ask. Oops. Yikes. What happened to “I got over it”? Honesty had just run blindly over coolness without even stopping to look back.
“Because you told me that night you never wanted to see me again,” he replied. “I took you at your word.”
“Well, you’d just dumped me when I least expected it,” she reminded him.
“I went about it all wrong,” he said. “The timing, the place—it was awful and I know that. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was confused and my head was a mess.”
Part of her still wanted to rein this situation in, act above it all—but he was on the verge of rewriting history here, so irritation took hold instead. “It was a long time ago, but my main memory of that night is that you made yourself very clear. You didn’t strike me as confused at all. I left there knowing very certainly that I’d been dumped and you were ready to move on with your new life.”
“Would you quit calling it that?” he said, sounding as offended as if the conversation had occurred just yesterday. “I didn’t dump you.”
“Of course you did. And if I’m remembering correctly, you didn’t like that word back then, either, but that’s what breaking up with somebody is—dumping them, being done with them.”
“I was a kid and I handled the whole thing poorly.”
“We were both kids—but that doesn’t make what we had nothing. We were crazy about each other. We made each other promises. It mattered.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I’m not trying to say it didn’t. You were everything to me then. And I guess an apology ten years later doesn’t count for much. I guess I should have reached out to you long before now. Maybe I was afraid you’d just tell me to go to hell.”
“Well, if the fear of me not being nice was enough to keep you from it, it must not have felt very important. When my mother died, though, I thought maybe then I would hear from you.”
“I know. I wanted to reach out when I heard. I wanted to let you know I cared.”
“At one time,” she reminded him quietly, “she thought of you like a son.”
“Yeah. I remember.” He sounded sad, maybe a little ashamed. “But it still came down to thinking you wouldn’t want me there. I wouldn’t have wanted to make a hard day for you even worse.”
“I can understand that,” she told him. “But for future reference, it turns out that when you lose your mother, condolences from pretty much anyone are welcome, especially from anyone who knew her and cared about her.”
Next to her, he nodded and said, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve made huge mistakes with you that I can never fix.”
He hit the nail on the head with that one, for sure.
So at this point she figured, what the hell, she might as well just keep on telling him the truth. “Did you know your father asked me to come talk to you?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Oh my God, Cara, I’m so sorry. That was so out of line.” He shook his head again. “I love my dad, but man, the guy never knows when to stay out of my business.”
“I declined,” she informed him. “I told him I didn’t know you anymore and had nothing to say to you. But since the universe brought me here anyway, maybe I should tell you what I think.”
He looked nervous. She’d already given him an earful, after all. In fact, this was probably a fine time to shut up and leave. But he finally said, “Okay,” and that took her back to what-the-hell.
“You’re not washed up,” she informed him. “No one is washed up at twenty-eight.”
At this, however, he simply let out a cynical laugh. “Tell that to the NFL.”
“I’m not talking about the NFL. I’m talking about figuring out what comes next.”
“Cara, the only thing I know how to do is play football.” Up to now, he’d seemed…well, in a better state of mind than his father had suggested, but now she suddenly heard him sounding defeated.
“Don’t you have a college degree in something?” she pointed out.
He released another big sigh. “Communications,” he said as if it was the foulest word a person could utter. “In preparation for a job in the media after I retired from football. Problem being that you pretty much have to have had a career for anybody to want you for that. Six years in the NFL and I was on the field for just over fifteen minutes of game time total.” He gave his head a short shake. “I’m not a hot property in football or communications. I’m not a hot property anymore period.”
“Look, I understand it sucks to get as far as you did and then get kicked around by injuries and fate. So you have a right to take some time to lick your wounds and get over that. But as for this business of being washed up, it’s silly. Do you think I wanted to figure out how to keep going after my father died when I was twelve? Do you think I wanted to figure out what came next when you pulled the rug out from under me when I was eighteen, when I was suddenly left behind to care for my sick mother with no future prospects? Do you think I might have wanted to give up after my mom passed away when I was twenty-two and not sure how I would even make a living? Everyone has those moments when it feels like all is lost and they don’t know what to do. And then they rise up and move beyond it.
The lucky thing for you is, you never have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to. You can take care of your family, and I suspect your dad is still only on the Destiny Police Force because he’d be bored otherwise. Or you can work—at anything you want, anywhere you want. You can do anything you please. Because you’re not washed up at twenty-eight—you’re a multi-millionaire at twenty-eight. The vast majority of people in the world, people who are out there working at jobs they do or don’t love, to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads, would trade places with you in a heartbeat.
So if I were you, I’d give myself a very limited amount of time to get over my disappointments—and then I’d start counting my blessings and figuring out what I can do with them to put some good into the world.”
“I’m sorry if that was too blunt. And on that note, I really should go.”
He stood up, too. “Cara,” he said. “It’s okay. That you told me what you think. I actually always loved that about you. You didn’t feed me bullshit—you kept things real, always. And this is probably going to sound a little weird, all things considered, but…”
“Yeah?” she asked cautiously when he trailed off.
“Can I see you again?”
“No,” she said softly. “I wish you all the best, I truly do. But what we had ended a long time ago.”
He pushed out another sigh, leaning back in his chair. “I guess I don’t blame you if you can’t forgive me.”
“This isn’t about forgiveness,” she assured him. “But as a wise woman told me just last night, it’s good to forgive, but another thing to forget. And the way things ended between us…it just changed how I saw you, how I felt about you as a person. Take care of yourself, Tyler. I know you’ll bounce back from this and figure out how to move forward again.”
----
He’d spent his whole adulthood so far being fawned over by fake women overly consumed with social standing and material things, and who seemed to have no goals in life other than being in awe of the nearest available pro athlete. And sure, at first it was fun, exciting, flattering—until it had sunk in that they were after fame and money more than anything honest or real.
----
“How come you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asked then without prelude.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“I asked first.”
How to answer? “I’ve dated plenty of guys, but…I guess no one’s made me feel…” Like you did. Okay, whoa—she needed to tread carefully here. “No one’s made me feel…the right way. You know.” Crap. She might as well have said “like you did.” She was a blubbering fool. Move on. Fast.
“Your turn.”
“I lived with someone for a while.”
The words were a dagger to her heart. Which was ridiculous—it had been ten years, and of course a hot pro football player would have women aplenty—but it still ripped her down the center to find out he’d had a relationship more serious than theirs. Despite her having been open to it, that just wasn’t the case for her. She tried to cover how gutted she was by just staring out over the fifty-yard-line and replying, “Oh?” Light and airy. Like she wasn’t affected at all. She had no idea if she’d pulled it off—but again, sometimes keeping it real was about remembering to protect yourself a little and not give everything away.
“Yeah,” he said. “She was the glamorous type.”
Great. Everything I’m not.
“But it was all smoke and mirrors. Turned out she was mostly into me for superficial reasons—money and prestige.”
She’d always thought that would be the one downside of wealth—never knowing if you were being appreciated for yourself or your bank account. “I’m sorry to hear that. How did it end?”
“She cheated on me,” he said on a slight laugh.
Cara turned to face him. “That’s funny?”
“Only because when I found out, I realized I didn’t care all that much, and it almost felt like a way out.” He stopped, screwing up his expression a little, clearly thinking back. “Truth is, I guess I was into the glamour for a little while, too. And she seemed like…the type of woman I was supposed to be into, so it was kind of superficial for me, too. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth. Give a guy too much money and attention at a young age and it can mess with your head, make you lose sight of what matters. I guess the good part is—I figured it out after that and took a step back. I quit partying or hanging out with people I didn’t really like. And I got a lot pickier about who I dated.”
Her heart was in her throat as she asked, still trying desperately to sound light, “Anyone good come along?”
He shrugged. “Some. But guess it’s the same as for you—nobody special.”
----
“Over the last ten years, I’ve been to a lot of places and done a lot of things with a lot of different people, all of it trying to…you know, get somewhere. Live life. Live up to my potential and all that. And yet somehow, here I am, sitting in the place that’s meant the most to me”—that was when he turned to meet her gaze—“with the only girl I’ve ever truly loved.”
July 28, 2022
This series was a fun one to read, I thought it long over as the last book came out in 2016, so I was pleasantly surprised when this book popped up on my library's website. I immediately requested it. While it's been years since I read the series, it was easy to step back in and I loved seeing all the old characters living their lives all these years later.
Tyler and Cara sure had a history. I hated how Tyler treated Cara that last night, how he let his parents get to him. When he slunk back into town I didn't really feel bad for him and was happy with how Cara dealt with the request from Tyler's dad. Cara is a bigger person than me, because I know I wouldn't have been able to do what she did, asking him to help the school. From here things went about how you thought they would. I did like the great condom theft, made for a funny moment. Despite me not being on team Tyler, I did like how this one ended. I liked that Cara got to see that finally she was deemed important enough to pick first.
Tyler and Cara sure had a history. I hated how Tyler treated Cara that last night, how he let his parents get to him. When he slunk back into town I didn't really feel bad for him and was happy with how Cara dealt with the request from Tyler's dad. Cara is a bigger person than me, because I know I wouldn't have been able to do what she did, asking him to help the school. From here things went about how you thought they would. I did like the great condom theft, made for a funny moment. Despite me not being on team Tyler, I did like how this one ended. I liked that Cara got to see that finally she was deemed important enough to pick first.
June 1, 2022
Wonderful to catch up with the Destiny crew, and life after with kids!
July 3, 2022
review to come
May 24, 2022
Reading Return to Destiny was like being wrapped in a warm hug. It's been 13 years since the release of the first Destiny book and six years since the last. I never expected Blake to return to her small Ohio town (though I hoped!) but I'm so very glad she did. How quickly I once again became immersed in the lives of beloved characters from earlier books as well as those newly introduced in this new story. All the hallmarks of this beloved series are present in Return to Destiny; heart-tugging emotion, humor, solid friendships, family dynamics, passion, second chances, and a sense of community that never gets old. Once again, I found myself laughing out loud, shedding tears, and sighing with happy delight. Blake's characters always find a way to touch my heart.
If you're a fan of the earlier Destiny books, you'll love this return to favorite people and favorite places with a brand new romance at the center. But, if you've never read the Destiny books, jump right in with Cara's and Tyler's journey in Return to Destiny. Let them be your welcome. My guess is that once you visit, the other stories won't be far behind.
*Advance copy received for fair and unbiased review
If you're a fan of the earlier Destiny books, you'll love this return to favorite people and favorite places with a brand new romance at the center. But, if you've never read the Destiny books, jump right in with Cara's and Tyler's journey in Return to Destiny. Let them be your welcome. My guess is that once you visit, the other stories won't be far behind.
*Advance copy received for fair and unbiased review
May 27, 2022
Ten years ago I walked into my local Barnes and nobles to find a new book to read. I usually stick to the same authors over and over but a table with autographed books caught my eye. Turns out just a few days prior Toni had done a signing there. I picked up the book and the rest was history. The Destiny series is one of my favorites. These books are my comfort reads, and are just all around the perfect escape. I was elated to see a new book came out and devoured it in less than 24 hours. There is something about the characters that Toni creates that is so darn loveable. And let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to live in the town of Destiny? As a Cincy native, I would give anything for this town and it’s people to be real.
I’ve loved all the main characters so far in the Destiny series and Cara was no exception. If you have read the rest of the series (and even if you haven’t, which you should) I highly recommend it. This book was like a warm hug, with a touch of spice, I needed just at the right time.
I’ve loved all the main characters so far in the Destiny series and Cara was no exception. If you have read the rest of the series (and even if you haven’t, which you should) I highly recommend it. This book was like a warm hug, with a touch of spice, I needed just at the right time.
May 24, 2022
I found this to be entertaining in the most realistic way..,the hero/heroine draw to each other because of a previous relationship.i felt ALL the emotions emulating from Cara throughout the story . Great job capturing all the vibes and feelings radiating from Tyler as well as the brutally honest reckoning that occurs intermittently between these two love birds . The timing , setting & season made the return visit an enjoyable one while reconnecting with previous characters.
May 25, 2022
Another great book by Toni Blake from her Destiny series. It was like coming home again. This latest from Blake's Destiny series is much like her other Destiny books: Great love story, characters coming home again and a real sense of community. This is a quick read great for the beach or a lazy summer afternoon.
September 15, 2022
A wonderful read! I loved Return to Destiny because the series is a favorite of mine but I was especially pleased that this one took place during Autumn. It was fun reading about all of the characters of Destiny that I know and love and getting acquainted with the new ones. A book by Toni Blake is always a treat for me, a lover of fiction and romance.
October 5, 2022
I loved this book! I was a huge fan of the original Destiny series, and this book felt like coming home. It was great to revisit the characters from the earlier books, and Cara and Tyler were great new characters by themselves. Anyone one who enjoys a good romance should give this book a try, even if you've never read any of the others before!
September 16, 2025
An older book from Toni Blake that popped up on my Amazon list. Once upon a time I was an avid reader of this author's books, but as the years passed I've gone in other directions. So thought I would give this one a look-see for old time sake.
Nothing new and felt like a rerun of so many others. I finished thinking OK - let's quickly move on!
June 3, 2022
Love this book so much and this author ! I’m Will always read her books . Return to Destiny has everything in the book you want to read about , it has heartbreak at first but 10 years later the love is still there ! I highly recommend you pick up Cara and Tyler’s story !
July 27, 2022
Return to Destiny
It was so much fun reading a Destiny book again. This book can be read as a stand alone but would be better reading the other books in the series. I know I am going to go back and read them.
It was so much fun reading a Destiny book again. This book can be read as a stand alone but would be better reading the other books in the series. I know I am going to go back and read them.
December 12, 2023
I enjoyed the second-chance romance between Cara and Tyler in Return to Destiny. I also enjoyed returning to Destiny and catching up with the characters.
May 24, 2022
I LOVED the Destiny series so I was ecstatic to learn Toni Blake would be taking readers back to Destiny! It did not disappoint, it was like going back to your hometown to visit your old friends.
The story of Cara and Tyler was so sweet and you found yourself cheering for Tyler from the get-go. He was the golden boy who took the town to state with high school football. Cara was the sweet girl he left behind to reach for his NFL dreams. Since I grew up in a small town, I loved the "boys of fall" and small town feel. The characters of both Cara and Tyler felt like I would of known them both in my small town and I have such an appreciation for connecting with characters on that level.
If you're looking for a sweet romance, characters that feel like family and a bit of football weaved in, pick this up and don't put it down until you're done!
Thank you Toni Blake for the ARC and for allowing me the honor of returning to Destiny just a bit early.
The story of Cara and Tyler was so sweet and you found yourself cheering for Tyler from the get-go. He was the golden boy who took the town to state with high school football. Cara was the sweet girl he left behind to reach for his NFL dreams. Since I grew up in a small town, I loved the "boys of fall" and small town feel. The characters of both Cara and Tyler felt like I would of known them both in my small town and I have such an appreciation for connecting with characters on that level.
If you're looking for a sweet romance, characters that feel like family and a bit of football weaved in, pick this up and don't put it down until you're done!
Thank you Toni Blake for the ARC and for allowing me the honor of returning to Destiny just a bit early.
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