Tamara Allen - The Road to Silver Plume

Author: Tamara Allen

Title: The Road to Silver Plume (Secret Service #1)

Language: English

Format: ebook

Rating: 2½ stars

No of pages: 326

Reading challenge: A book that has changed your opinion about a subject

Read: 25.12 - 26.12.2017

Goodreads

BLURB:

Secret Service operative Emlyn Strickland may be new to field work, but his talent for identifying counterfeit bank notes, honed over ten years at the Treasury, has given Sing Sing's population a respectable boost. When counterfeiter August McKee takes illegal advantage of a sinking silver market, his former confederate Darrow Gardiner shares that information with Agent Strickland so they can track down the once-friend who left Darrow to rot in prison.

Promised his freedom in return, Darrow's after something more. He wants possession of his best work, the flawless fifty dollar plates still in McKee's hands. And with a little maneuvering, he'll have the one thing a vengeful McKee may consider fair barter: the Secret Service operative whose testimony sent them both up the river.

It seems an objective within Darrow's reach after he rescues Emlyn from an assassin, earning a measure of his trust in the process. But on the cross-country journey in search of McKee, another attempt on their lives leaves operative and outlaw stranded miles from Denver, with no one to rely upon but each other. Beset by turncoat agents, angry miners, and the burgeoning threat of a wealthy and powerful McKee, Darrow and Emlyn discover that standing on opposite sides of the law doesn't safeguard them from the dangers of friendship--or a deeper attraction that may force Darrow to choose between the real and the counterfeit as he's never done before.

I was led to believe that this is a slow burn romance novel by this list and although I kind of believe that there are some romance elements to the overall story, it's more of a mystery novel than a romance novel.  While I quite liked the novel, I have to admit that it didn't work for me like I wished it to, but it may have had a lot to do with the fact that I looked more for a romance than a mystery novel. 

I wanted to see attraction and tension and some good old anticipation, and while I got all of them, I didn't get them the way I wanted to. I wanted some tension and anticipation romance-wise, but most of the tension in the story and anticipation had something to do with the danger Darrow and Emlyn were constantly in. In other words, I didn't really see the attraction between the guys.

I really liked the whole part with counterfeiting as it was something I had never really read about before and I feel like I learned a lot about this topic and it felt like Tamara Allen really did her research in that aspect. While I'm in no way knowledgeable about the topic of economics in 1890's US, it sounded realistic and Allen's writing left no questions hanging for me.