MAJOR SPOILERS 
 (I'm becoming quite the spoiler these days) 
 So when this book started I was seriously thinking 
 I was expecting an arranged marriage and then vikings attacked and ransacked Brenna's village and took her and several other women hostage. What continued for quite some pages was rape, rape, rape, and wait for it....... Rape. But of course Brenna acted so crazy and was so admired by the chieftain that no one touched her. 
 Now I've read plenty of books with rape, but I was just sitting there thinking, 'Is everyone supposed to live happily ever after after all this?'. Brenna is still being given to Garrick, as a slave now instead of a wife, but after his father killed or enslaved basically everyone she knew, I was wondering how she would fall in love with him. 
 But hey.... It's romance land. Anything can happen. So Garrick finally decides to grace everyone with his presence and boy oh boy. 
 Not only is he a grade A douche, but some girl has broken his heart and has him thinking every woman is a conniving gold digger. Just great. What proceeds is Brenna and Garrick's fight for dominance. It was quite tiresome at times. Even when Garrick would relent on one thing, Brenna would totally put her foot in her mouth and ruin it. There were many times I wanted to strangle her. 
 Then Garrick just hadddddd to use the word slave at every turn and piss her off or once again decide no woman can be trusted. Ughh. 
 Then they finally had sex. It was alright (even if it was over with too quickly). So I'm like, 'Let the romance beginnnn' but nope. Almost everytime after that Brenna would refuse (she couldn't willingly give herself to someone who wasn't her husband), but she secretly wanted him to 'use his force on her'. I mean, hey whatever gets your motor running. But goodness, it's ok to just say get over here and drop em. A girl's got needs too. 
 But eventually they kind of soften towards one another and Garrick dresses her with gifts and brings her to his father's feast. There she realizes she loves Garrick. She tells him in the heat of the moment later (of course she had refused to have sex with him this time too) and he tells her he has no love to give back. She runs back to Garrick's house and is kidnapped by 2 men from a neighboring clan (they were paid by someone unknown at this point). She's counting on Garrick to come to her rescue, but he assumes she ran away and bans people from even saying her name. She eventually escapes by 'killing' one of her captors and goes on a dangerous journey back to Garrick. Just to get back there and have everyone hear her story of what happened and say 
 I felt so bad for her. She went through hell and used love as her motivation to get back home and then Garrick turns his back on her, calls her a liar, and gives her to his father. You anger and disappoint me Garrick. 
 But something good came out of the whole episode. Garrick's father freed Brenna. Butttttt she's pregnant and once old grandpa knows this, she wasn't going home until she's had his grandkid. Garrick's been brooding on his ship while all this was going on and comes home to rescue Brenna after an assassination attempt and in labor. She wakes up in Garrick's house in time to push out the baby. 
 She has their son, Selig, and it appears as if Garricks doesn't see him much after the first time and I was back to hating him. But then you find out he's been sneaking to see Selig when Brenna wasn't around and was avoiding Brenna so he wouldn't upset her. He had realized he couldn't live without her. 
 But there's still the little issue of Garrick not believing she was kidnapped. Brenna won't reconcile unless he believes her and so is determined to sail back home. When she's all packed up to go, Garrick comes and confesses his love and vows to trust her from now on. And has a little surprise... One of her kidnappers. Of course the kidnapper acts like he doesn't even know Brenna and Garrick is disappointed until Brenna mentions a scar on the kidnapper only Garrick and the kidnapper know about. Said kidnapper hits Garrick on the head knocking him out and kidnapping Brenna...again. It's revealed that one of Garrick's servant, Yarmille, is behind everything. Brenna escapes and is reunited with Garrick to find out he left Selig with good old trusty Yarmille. 
 But, quite anti-climactic-y, she just left him in the woods and they found him. Now that Brenna is a freewoman and all, she and Garrick get married and cut. 
 So not a great beginning, but it had mostly won me over by the end. The characters sometimes got on my nerves, but I was still reaching for this book every chance I got so...