Draw the Line by Kim Carmichael

Draw the Line by Kim Carmichael

Published by Kindle Press on December 27 2016

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Comedy, Contemporary

Pages 226

The performance artist and con artist come together for the ultimate marriage of convenience.

Performance Artist, Argyle Brink, lives his life as one big art exhibit. No matter if he is hatching from a gilded egg to show his emergence as a new persona, or donning a suit of mirrors to reflect reality back to his audience, he never misses an opportunity to take a chance and stand by his convictions. Only one thing has eluded him…fame.

In order to save her family’s estate, Malone Summersfield must never return to England. After conning an art critic into taking her across the pond as his fiancée, she thinks her life will be smooth sailing. However, when the man’s wife enters the picture, she realizes the con is all on her, and she needs to get married now. When the strange, yet handsome, performance artist offers to marry her for the price of co-starring in his reality show, she figures she’ll give it a go and become a living art piece.

The show takes on a life of its own, gaining ratings from the sparks between the two stars. Airing everything from their dirty laundry, to public sex in an abandoned zoo, and even living off the grid in a micro house, nothing is off limits. However, when the INS decides to investigate their marriage further, and Argyle uses their predicament to broaden his art, Malone wonders if she will ever come first in his life.

With their marriage, their show, and her citizenship at stake, the two must decide if the ultimate truth lies in the art or in their love.

This book held a lot of quirky promise for me, but I found it fell short of my expectations.

The plot, what little there was of it, moves quickly - a bit too quick - and then plateaus. I found the author focuses on the characters and their relationships more than the actual plot, which would be fine if the plot was at least executed to the point it was described in the summary. However, it felt rushed and I could easily see the story line had many cracks and lacked any substantial details. It is a little cringe-worthy at times, but Argyle is definitely swoon-worthy as well. The family aspect was very nice, adding a quite a bit of humor and unexpectedness. The overall book was okay, but not my favorite. It was enjoyable but had a bit of a dated rom-com cliche feel at times rather than the fun, tongue in cheek, fresh feel I was hoping for. It reminded me of a Harlequin Romance at times, not a bad thing, but not as good as what was sold to me. 

I expected the romance and comedy, but I also thought there would be a bit of suspense or drama with the supposed dread of INS investigating and Malone fearing she will be sent home. That aspect of the story was barely there and what was there was far too rushed and served as more of a means to an end than an actual conflict or hardship for the couple to overcome.Considering romance one must also consider accompanying sex or at least sexual tension, and any romance reader hopes the scenes of intimacy are of, at least, a good caliber if not steamy and great. However, the intimate scenes were only okay and I found them a bit lackluster compared to other novels. Argyle is described as passionate man who lives life to its fullest, but many scenes just did not convey that in the physical relationship. 

Overall, Draw the Line is a quick read and entertaining but never reached the overall plot intensity I was hoping for after reading the description. I would say this is actually more of a 2.5 out of 5 because I really enjoyed aspects of it but there were other parts that were just okay because of a lack of depth and description.