Defiant Bride is a coarse, sometimes outrageous, novel comparable to Shakespeare?s The Taming of the Shrew, only with a crueler plot. The heroine, Cathryn Campbell, is alternately irritating and pitiable, while her Scottish Highland outlaw of a suitor, Revan MacLinn, is an infinitely more appealing, though erratic, character. After he kidnaps the prudish young Cathryn, a prim Lowlander, on her wedding night, he rides her by horseback to his towering castle, Wolfcrag, hidden deep beyond the dense forests of Scotland. Once there, he tries to woo her in numerous ways, which categorically fail. Much of their time is spent arguing about their very much opposed codes of law, hers being dictated by the King and his indulging in pure anarchy. The middle of the book hurls some satisfyingly unexpected twists at the reader and the story accelerates at a strong, adventurous speed all the way to the clever, surprising ending.