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Information:
Title: Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold
Author: Terry Irene Blaine
Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
Target Audience: Adult
Genre: Historical romance
Length: 225 pages
Story: To protect her sister, Juliette Lawson stole documents and fled west. Now Wes Westmoreland, undercover lawman, threatens both her plan and her heart.
Socialite Juliette Lawson fled west from Philadelphia on a train and in disguise. In Colorado she’d be safe; she’d take work with her uncle at the Rio d'Oro, his smelting operation. Her actions back east had been wrong, but to protect her pregnant sister from scandal she would have done anything. Then she met a man as hungry for answers as she was for independence. A handsome, honorable man. For him, she wished the truth was hers to tell.
From the first, Wes Westmoreland knew he couldn’t trust her. Having grown up in the saloons and brothels of San Francisco, he saw trust, like love, as a luxury an undercover lawman couldn’t afford. Not on a job like this one, not with gold involved. This woman dressed as a widow was clearly hiding something; he’d felt it the moment they touched. But he’d felt other things too, stirrings in his heart, and for the first time ever, he saw riches worth the peril.
Thoughts and impressions:
Historical romance seems to be one of my weaknesses. It’s not a genre
that’s usually particularly inspiring and often enough the books are set in
England (or Scotland) but written in modern day American English, which bugs me
to no end. I haven’t read very many historical anythings set in the Americas
but I’ve been brought up around a grandmother who happens to be overly fond of
westerns, so when I read the synopsis of this one I was intrigued. The American
west in that period was still very much on the wild side and that sort of
setting appeals to me, possibly because it’s such a far cry from anything to be
found these days.
The author managed to really capture the
feel of the period for me. I felt transported. I could just imagine this little
western town they were living in! It was obvious that she did a lot of research
and went to great lengths to make her period feel authentic – research and
great lengths that definitely paid off for me as the reader.
It was also interesting to see the process
of getting gold and silver from the ore and how the refineries (that might not
be the correct word but it’s the only one coming to mind right now) were
operated. There was a slight issue here, however, in that the information was
too clumped for me. Wes gives Julie a tour of her uncle’s “refinery” and
explains the processes to her, which is a good example of exposition through
dialogue. My issue was that there was too much information too fast for me to
really absorb it properly. It didn’t help that I was already tired and so a
large amount of what is essentially nonfiction coming at me all at once felt
more like a barrage of facts than part of the story. I understand what the
author was doing, but my mind just couldn’t deal with it.
Thankfully these “info dumps” were few and
far between and I was able to really appreciate the intricate story that the
author was weaving. As a historical romance it does, of course, focus mainly on
the budding relationship between Wes and Julie but there’s enough going on
around it to keep it well balanced. I didn’t feel completely swamped by just
the relationship and it wasn’t love at first sight (though it was lust, but I’m
happy with lust. Lust is normal).
Wes being an undercover officer for Wells Fargo was also of particular
interest. I have to admit that I didn’t even know there was such a thing as
Wells Fargo; never mind what its role was. So I actually learnt bits of
American history from reading this book! That’s something that always appeals
to me in a book.
Style: I don't have anything in partiulcar to note about the style. I enjoyed the author's prose from start to finish.
Final verdict: Historical romances are one of my weaknesses and I have to say that usually they don't really live up to what I was expecting of them. This one, though, really tickled my fancy! 4.5 stars
Extra notes: Sex is present. Bad language didn't stand out but could be present.
In the author's own words:
Topic: Story Ideas from Research
Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold’s
story idea grew out of the location.
Having driven through Durango on several occasions, I loved the place. Doing
research on the history of Durango brought up the city’s connection with Wells
Fargo and reading about Wells Fargo, I found that the company in the era of my
story did in fact, have detectives.
Wow, what a great idea – my hero, Wes,
could be a detective for Wells Fargo. Many of the incidents that happened or
are related to my hero as a Wells Fargo detective actually occurred (although
I’ve used my hero, with changes in times and place). This is why I love
research.
The Wells Fargo connection also gave me
some of Wes’ backstory/background. To
communicate between offices and various
other businesses in San Francisco (giving me where my hero grew up), Wells
Fargo employed boys to carry messages at twenty-five cents a message. This
would be Wes’ first job, connecting him with the company. This allowed Wes to
advance in the company eventually becoming a guard for the iconic green box
(green painted box wooden box bound with strap iron and sealed with a hasp and
lock), which became a trademark of the company; his foiling a robbery ended up
with him becoming a detective for the company.
Much to my surprise, I found that
several undercover Wells Fargo detectives held jobs as deputy sheriffs, or even
county sheriffs while actually working for Wells Fargo. So Wes’ job working for
the smelters isn’t as odd as it might seem.
The most famous Wells Fargo detective
was James Hume, responsible for the capture of Black Bart, the notorious
stagecoach bandit know for leaving poetic messages at the site of his
robberies. At what turned out to be Black Bart’s last robbery, he was wounded
and fled the scene. One of the items left behind was a handkerchief with a
laundry mark. Hume and another Wells Fargo detective went to over ninety
laundries in San Francisco and traced it the customer and his boarding house.
The suspect confessed to the robbery.
Even today, the Wells Fargo stagecoach
is still one of the enduring images of the West. Doing research on Wells Fargo
really helped me shape my hero and his character and helped me develop the plot
of Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold.
The author:
Terry Irene Blain was lucky enough to
grow up in a large Mid-western family with a rich oral tradition. As a child
she heard stories of ancestors’ adventures with Indians, wildlife, weather and
frontier life in general, so she naturally gravitated to the study of history
and completed a BA and MA then taught the subject at the college level. Married
to a sailor, now retired, she’s had the chance to live in various parts of the
U.S. and has traveled to Hong Kong, Australia, England and Scotland.
“My degrees and my teaching
experience make me a natural to write historical romance. Writing historical
romance gives me the opportunity to pass on stories of who we are and where we
come from while exploring the relationship between men and women. What could be
more exciting than that?”
The giveaway:
Open internationally
I just had to drop by and thank you for a great review of this book. I am getting ready to publish my own review of this book, and I decided to stop by and see if I was doing it correctly. And then I was welcomed with a very fair review.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that lately I have been seeing a lot of half-hearted reviews done by "book" bloggers, but yours is just how it should be!