Review: Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190mph by Kimberly Montague

Kimberly Montague’s first novel, Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190mph is a romance centered around the racing world and focusing on central character Alexis’ love for Seth, whose father has been her and her brother’s guardian since her parents died. The novel focuses on not just the beginning of the relationship but what follows and covers an extended period of time in order to fully establish the characters and their connections These family relationships and their impact on Alexis and Seth’s romance are a focus of the novel, as is the scrutiny and judgment of others, and it is this broad range of interconnected themes which, for me, makes this novel more interesting than a conventional romance.

Alexis, who narrates the novel, is not perfect; she is at times selfish, manipulative and childish, and it is often these flaws which cause her many of the problems she has to overcome. It is these flaws though which make Alexis an interesting and appealing character and which got me involved in the plot of the novel. Montague’s writing engaged me in her character’s emotions, which are well described and believable, although the dialogue is at times less so. As with many first novels any flaws in the beginning are far overshadowed by the end of the novel, where Montague’s writing becomes natural, original and enjoyable.

Montague’s husband races and her familiarity with this world allows her to explain the interesting parts in just enough detail that it doesn’t bore those with little knowledge of or interest in racing like myself. This focus also adds interest to the novel as Alexis must reacquaint herself with the racing world, and those for whom it is a living, if her romance with Seth is to have any hope. Romance is not a genre I usually read but the engaging characters, interesting focus and broader focus on relationships outside of the main couple’s romance helped me to really enjoy Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190mph.

Stats
Title: Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190mph
Author: Kimberly Montague
Style: Romance
Price: $2.99
Date of publication: January 25, 2011
Length: 100,000 +
Can be found at:
Smashwords (Kindle, ePub, PDF, RTF, LRF, PDB, Plain Text & Online)
Amazon (Kindle)

Thanks to Kimberly Montague for sending me this novel for review, I am always happy to accept works from authors for review. These reviews are conducted following the guidelines on the policy page.