Description: Lucy Drake's mastery of Morse code has made her a valuable asset to the American news agencies as a telegrapher. But the sudden arrival of Sir Colin Beckwith at rival British news agency Reuters puts her hard-earned livelihood at risk. Newly arrived from London, Colin is talented, handsome, and insufferably charming.
Despite their rivalry, Lucy realizes Colin's connections could be just what her family needs to turn the tide of their long legal battle over the fortune they were swindled out of forty years ago. When she negotiates an unlikely alliance with him, neither of them realizes how far the web of treachery they're wading into will take them.
My Thoughts: I have read plenty of novels in my life in which Morse code played a part in the narrative, however this is the first time I have seen it played out in the setting of a newspaper industry. The history between AP and Reuters was something that I enjoyed learning about, along with how new stories were dispersed in that day. Sometimes it is difficult to wrap my mind around the realization the internet is not as old as it seems to those of us who cannot remember a time without it, and that the spread of information would have had to have been far more deliberate.
The history and research represented in this novel were interesting, driving the story a bit better than the plot in my mind. While the court case over the valves remind the main conflict, most of what took place actually revolved around the ingenuity of the telegraph, the usefulness of homing pigeons, and the struggle of everyone to find happiness in an economic system that is so often is manipulated to work against them.
In all of this, the actual romance between Lucy and Colin seemed to get lost. They were drawn to each other from the start, but individual pursuits of happiness created a wall between them that both determined in the beginning not to cross. This made their romance difficult for me to get behind, as Colin actively sought other wifely candidates. Also, Lucy continuously broke the law in order to further her own goals, practically forcing everyone who knew to either silently support her or else turn her in to the police. And Nick and Colin just went with it.
There were not any major flaws that I saw with this work, nothing that made me intensely dislike it or wish that I had never picked it up. But there also was not much that interested me. The history, as I said before, was interesting, but history alone cannot drive a story when the characters behave in ways that kept me from connecting with them.
I have provided an honest review after having received a copy of the book from the publisher.
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