Andrew's Outback Love (Outback Australia, #1)

by Susan Horsnell

[EBookObsessed]

I loved the backdrop and premise of the story, but the length of the story made the romance fall short.

I love the idea of the Royal Flying Doctor Service traveling to the remote areas of the outback and in this story dealing with giving sight back to the indigenous population. In the story, the doctors fly from one area out to one of the remote cattle stations where people have walked miles to see Dr. Andrew Lowman. After their first stop, they travel by four-wheel vehicles for 2 to 4 hours to get to each of their next stops, working their way back toward Burke. It is amazing and scary to think about just how far some of these people are from not just a hospital but simply an available doctor.

The backdrop of the Australian Outback is wonderful although I would like a little more description of what Andrew is seeing of the scenery out the plane window or what the outback looks like as they travel and simply more narrative of the different areas and also to meet more of the indigenous peoples who have come to see Andrew.

In this first book, we meet the other members of Andrew's team. We are also meet the people at the various cattle stations and how the various surgeries are set up. The pilots aren't just pilots, they are also trained emergency doctors so they can step in when needed.

My biggest issue with this story was the romance aspect. First it was too short a story to give us anything but insta-love and introduce all the characters and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Secondly, Linda comes in to replace a pregnant nurse who needs to be on bed rest and she is soooo beautiful that all the men on the team are tripping over each other to be Linda's sole focus, even after she tells them that her last boyfriend was abusive and tried to kill her. But Andrew is still disappointed when she wants to take things slow and maybe date other people when he has to be at the hospital in Sydney because the last boyfriend turned out to be nuts. She quickly changes her mind after they spend about two days apart and suddenly she wants to be his girlfriend and they are off having sex.

Now, if this was a different type of story, I might think that Linda's sudden desire for exclusivity might have something to do with the 22,000 acre cattle farm that Andrew purchases for $1M or that if you investigated deeper than Linda's perfect features, you might find that her ex-boyfriend shot her because she was a crazy stalker and not the other way around.   But this is a romance so we need to accept that Linda is traffic stopping gorgeous and that also means she must be brilliant and dedicated and all those other things that Andrew lists about why he likes her, all this after barely meeting her.   Yes, I am jaded. It is not that beautiful women can't be smart, but I don't like the presumption that magazine perfection makes her a better, smarter person without any time getting to know her.

The next book features Ruby, who is one of the nurses, we know she is smart (she has a doctorate) and dedicated (she insisted on a job with the RDS so she could help her people).  Ruby is also an indigenous woman, and because of her, more of the local people turn up to get the help they need.  She a hold-nothing-back woman with an infectious laugh.  I am looking forward to getting to know Ruby better in this next book. Goodread said this story is 210 pages but Amazon notes it at 141 pages. Her romance is with police officer who she knows but doesn't like, so it will be an enemies-to-lovers story and hopefully will gel better than Linda and Andrew's romance.

Received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.

See more at EBookObsessed.com