Matalia is the spoiled, cloistered daughter of Laird Ronin McTaver and the forest kingdom princess, Kalial. Determined to rebel against her parents' plans to marry her off respectably she decides she wants to know what the secrets of what goes on behind the marriage doors are without the commitment. In keeping with this she shanghais the captured prisoner of bandits on her property and decides to keep him as an experiment and teacher of the ways of men and woman. What she doesn't realize is that the traveler she is keeping is actually lord and warrior Brogan O'Bannon on his way back to wrest his kingdom from the hands of his twin brother.

I have to say that I came very close to putting this book down (or throwing it across the room) after the first few chapters. I certainly cannot condone how these two people treated each other at all in the beginning, as it really amounted to rape on both their parts. Additionally keeping in mind Matalia's supposed to be about 16 years old just made it worse. I know that in the historical context 16 was of marriageable age but I'm still not thrilled with it. Getting past all that was difficult but I did it because I kept thinking the story would get better, and it did for the most part. I did like Matalia's relationship with her wolves and even grew to like her a little bit as the story went on. I also liked the connection between Brogan and his twin brother, Xanthier, despite their warring against each other. The bedroom scenes were about as steamy as what I consider the norm for this type of novel, not too tame, not too graphic. I found the last third of the book the most interesting part and believe it was worth going through the rest of it to get there.

I think this is an okay highlander romance that might be of interest to those who enjoyed the relationship between Clare and Jamie in Outlander. ( )