3.5 stars
I have mixed feelings about this one and some trouble classifying it. While I loved the characters, the different setting (the Australian Outback) and finding a new Australian author, I thought there was a lot of melodrama and the writing style showed a tendency toward hyperbole and overdramatizing, which aren’t really my favorite strategies.
So, the hero Ryder Harper, is a wounded hero (here in the most denotative sense), a former Australian Special Forces soldier, who is a larger than life character – a “battle-hardened Prince Charming”, a huge, gentle warrior with a “granite jaw”, “massive biceps”, a “mountainous torso”, a blending of male ruggedness, sexiness and gentleness.
He is “cocky, overbearing, overprotective, over-skilled”. He’s “just too much – too much muscle, too much charm, and too much alpha-male confidence and experience”.
His fierce devotion to the heroine is admirable.
The heroine, Abi… she’s really strong. I had my doubts about the feasibility of some of her actions and I had to suspend the disbelief what with her condition.
This is an insta-attraction and insta-love romance – I found it credible. Even though I liked the parts about Ryder’s family, giving an insight into life in the Australian Outback, I thought that could have been reduced.
So, this was intense but with lots of eye-rolling. And I’ve enjoyed it.

Jezz de Silva wrote a superb story about a woman and man falling into instalove...and by the way, she has a life-threatening brain tumor.

I liked the reality of some of the scenes- shaven head, scars from prior surgeries and biopsies, headaches..:the details that add the touch of reality.  For Ryder, he also has something to overcome...he lost a leg in the service.

A rated this four stars, because even though there was reality and even though the reality is that Abi could face lifelong disability due to the tumor, there were still times that I felt like the emotion was missing from Abi ..I think I would have been scared in such a situation, and that if I were Ryder, there would be emotion tied to losing my leg.  

DeSilva had a tough job.  This isn't a book about cancer, it's a love story.  And I'm sure she didn't want people to cry all the way through the book...but I never shed one tear and I think there would have been at least a few scenes sad enough to make that happen, given the context of the book. 

But there is an HEA and I cheered for as I and Ryder to get that, so the story is satisfying.