A ranch-raised girl who rides like a cowboy. An intense revolutionary trained in patriarchy. Will their exchange of vows be for better or worse?

1913. El Paso, Texas. Katherine O’Brien, desperate to escape her abusive fiancé, crosses the Texas-Mexico border from El Paso to Juárez. A doctor’s widow, Elena Gonzalez, welcomes Kate into her home in Juárez and nurses her back to health. The two women grow close, and Elena worries about keeping Kate safe during the chaos of the ongoing Mexican Revolution.

Rodolfo Fierro, a soldier in Pancho Villa’s Revolutionary army, is inexplicably attracted to Kate. Aided by Elena, he convinces her to marry him so that he can protect her with his ruthless reputation and superior fighting ability.

Although Kate finds herself drawn to the intense soldier, she hesitates to trust another man and struggles to adapt to an unfamiliar culture. While Fierro treats her well, he expects an obedient and docile wife, something Kate, a tomboy raised on a ranch, knows is not part of her nature. The two strive to find a middle ground even as he fights beside Villa in the brutal Revolutionary War.

When the Revolution turns against Villa, the couple is separated and Kate must lead her small extended family to a new home without help from her husband… and with her violent ex-fiancé following her tracks. Facing these challenges tests her courage and survival skills to the utmost.

This extraordinary work of historical fiction blends two narratives—the history of Pancho Villa’s role in the Mexican Revolution, from 1910 to 1923, and the unfolding of a stormy cross cultural marriage that takes place during those turbulent times.