The Poison Daughter

The must-have, true enemies-to-lovers standalone romantasy about a woman whose lips are deadly poison . . . until she meets the one man who can survive her kiss.

The deluxe limited edition first printing features sprayed edges, full-color illustrated case, and an exclusive bonus chapter from Henry’s POV.

In the absence of a conscience, men need something to fear. I’ve made myself their monster.

Every person Harlow Carrenwell kisses dies immediately, and that’s the way she likes it. The poison-lipped youngest daughter of Lunameade’s magical founding family has used her power to annihilate their opposition.

Her first husband is in the ground. Her mysterious new betrothed is next.

But Harlow has a secret. When she’s not acting as an assassin at her parents’ whims, she moonlights as a vigilante hunting abusive men in their walled-off city.

Meet a man. Lure him in. Kill him with a kiss. Until one night Harlow kisses a mark and he doesn’t die.

Worse, the man immune to her kiss is her new betrothed, Henry Havenwood, and now he knows about her double life. The only way to protect her secret and her city is get close enough to Henry to figure out why the Havenwoods have reappeared after years of silence and what they have planned.

Cursed with a husband she can’t kill and trapped in a fortress surrounded by vampire-infested woods, Harlow’s survival requires her to do the impossible: Make the man who knows she’s a killer fall in love with her anyway.

Tropes: Marriage of inconvenience / Feminine rage / Forced proximity / Touch her and die / Enemies to lovers / Vigilante FMC / Dash of vampires / Primal/fear play / “Who did this to you” / Dual POV

Sheila Masterson is the USA Today Bestselling author of The Poison Daughter, a dark enemies to lovers romantasy standalone about a vigilante who uses her poison kiss to take revenge on abusive men in her community, until she's unwittingly thrust into an arranged marriage with the only man immune to her magic.

Her other works include the gothic fairy tale fantasy romance, Song of the Dark Wood, the angsty epic romantasy quartet, The Lost God Series, as well as its next-generation standalone spinoff, A Legacy of Stars.

When Sheila's not busy stabbing beloved side characters and dreaming up new ways to make her readers cry, you can find her browsing the shelves at local indie bookstores, drinking fancy cocktails with friends, or curled up reading books and tarot. She lives outside Philadelphia with a small army of underwatered houseplants that survive out of spite.

“An FMC who kills men with a poisonous kiss? I’d like to formally submit my application to become Harlow’s best friend. Sheila Masterson gives us a deliciously dark and spicy story with a fierce FMC that you will be rooting for from the first page. I could not put this book down! The tension? The banter? The steaming hot spice? The twists and reveals? The Poison Daughter is a masterpiece that everyone who loves dark romantasy needs to read!” —Sophia St. Germain author of A Tongue So Sweet and Deadly

“Sexy, addictive, and deadly. The Poison Daughter is a delicious, true enemies-to-lovers that will keep you absolutely riveted. This is a book that will pull you close, sink in its claws, and never let you go.” —Jaclyn Rodriguez, USA Today bestselling author of A Vow in Vengeance

“The Poison Daughter is an expertly woven, Divine tale of arranged marriage, feminine rage, and vengeance. A must-read full of twists and turns that will have you gasping, this enemies-to-lovers romantasy is addicting, spicy, and unputdownable.” —Elayna R. Gallea, author of Tethered

The Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson is a dark fantasy romance built around vengeance, trauma, forbidden desire, family power, and the difficult process of learning to trust again. Set in the walled city of Lunameade, the novel follows Harlow Carrenwell, the youngest daughter of a powerful magical family. Harlow possesses a terrifying gift: anyone she kisses dies from poison. Her family has used this ability as a political weapon, turning her into an assassin. But Harlow has also created a secret identity for herself as the “Poison Vixen,” a vigilante who hunts abusive men whom the law and the powerful families refuse to punish. The novel combines an enemies-to-lovers romance with political intrigue, vampires, magical bloodlines, and a deeply emotional story about surviving abuse.

At the beginning of the story, Harlow appears confident, dangerous, and almost comfortable with death. Yet beneath that hard exterior is a woman carrying enormous emotional wounds. Her older sister, Aidia, is married to Rafe Mattingly, a powerful and violent man who repeatedly abuses her. Harlow desperately wants to kill him, but her family values political influence more than Aidia’s safety. This hypocrisy becomes one of the central reasons Harlow embraces her secret life as the Poison Vixen. If powerful men cannot be stopped through ordinary justice, she believes they deserve a different kind of justice. Her violence is therefore not presented simply as cruelty; it grows from rage, grief, helplessness, and her determination to protect women who have been failed by the society around them.

Harlow’s carefully controlled life changes when her parents announce that she must marry Henry Havenwood, heir to Mountain Haven. The fortress was believed to have been destroyed years earlier by the Drained, vampire-like creatures that threaten the human settlements. Harlow sees the proposed marriage as another example of her family treating her as a political possession. Her parents, however, give her a mission: investigate the mysterious Havenwoods and discover their connection to the rebel leader known as Rochelli. In exchange, Harlow hopes to obtain a secret tunnel key that might eventually allow her to escape Lunameade with Aidia.

The marriage becomes especially complicated because Harlow has already met Henry without realizing who he is. While working as the Poison Vixen, she attempted to kill a man named Asher with her kiss. To her astonishment, the poison did not work. She later discovers that Asher is Henry Havenwood, her future husband. Henry is equally shocked to learn that his intended bride tried to murder him. Instead of exposing her immediately, however, he decides to investigate her motives. Their relationship consequently begins as a dangerous mixture of suspicion, attraction, manipulation, and mutual blackmail.

As Harlow travels to Mountain Haven with Henry and his family, she gradually discovers that the Havenwoods are hiding extraordinary secrets. Henry is not an ordinary man. He died during the destruction of Mountain Haven and was resurrected by his mother, whose rare magical ability can bring the dead back to life. After his resurrection, Henry received another gift that makes him immune to methods of killing that have already been used against him. Since poison has already killed him once, Harlow’s kiss cannot kill him. His apparent invulnerability becomes both a source of fascination and a powerful metaphor: Harlow, who has always been separated from other people by the lethal nature of her body, has finally met someone who can touch her without dying.

Their relationship slowly changes from hostility into attraction. Forced proximity at Mountain Haven gives Harlow and Henry opportunities to see the vulnerabilities behind each other’s defenses. Henry carries scars from the destruction of his home and the deaths of his loved ones, while Harlow hides physical and emotional scars of her own. Their romance is intense and deliberately dark, but beneath the sensuality is a gradual recognition between two damaged people who understand loss. Harlow begins to discover that Henry may be more than the enemy she expected him to be. At the same time, she remains determined to uncover what his family is hiding.

The mystery deepens when Harlow learns that Henry and several members of Mountain Haven are “Deathless”—people who have returned from death. She also discovers that her own family has committed far more terrible acts than she imagined. Harlow’s father, Harrick, has systematically eliminated children blessed with holy fire because he fears their magical abilities could threaten the Carrenwell family’s political dominance. The Carrenwells have maintained their authority not simply through legitimate power but through fear, murder, manipulation, and control.

The greatest revelation, however, concerns Aidia. Harlow has spent much of the novel believing that her sister is still alive and suffering under Rafe’s abuse. Eventually she is forced to confront the truth: Aidia died six months earlier. Rafe used his magical ability to control the sisters and compelled Harlow to push Aidia from a balcony. The horror was so overwhelming that Harlow’s mind fractured around the memory, creating an imagined version of Aidia so that she could continue functioning. This revelation transforms the entire emotional foundation of the novel. Harlow’s vigilante mission, her hatred of Rafe, and her desperate wish to rescue her sister have all been shaped by a grief she could not consciously accept.

Once Harlow remembers what happened, she turns her anger toward the people responsible. She confronts her parents and forces them to acknowledge their role in the abuse and Aidia’s death. With Kellan’s help, she makes them experience the violence they inflicted on their children before killing them with poison. Her revenge is brutal, but it also represents the destruction of the system that turned her into a weapon. Meanwhile, Henry confronts Rafe and forces him to face the consequences of his violence against Harlow and Aidia.

Yet even after Harlow achieves the revenge she has wanted for so long, she discovers that vengeance cannot repair everything. Her relationship with Henry suffers another devastating blow when she discovers that he possesses a second magical blessing from the Divine of Malice. His ability allows him to manipulate emotions, meaning that some of the feelings Harlow developed for him may have been influenced by his magic. She feels betrayed and flees, terrified that even the love she thought was real might have been another form of control. Henry, however, gives her something crucial: a means of permanently killing him, proving that he is willing to surrender his greatest advantage and place his life in her hands.

In the final chapters, Harlow retreats to a safe place associated with Aidia and begins the emotional work of letting her sister go. Through an imagined conversation with Aidia, she recognizes that remembering someone does not require remaining trapped in the past. The Poison Vixens will continue their work, while Lunameade begins moving toward a new political order after Kellan reveals himself as Rochelli and exposes the crimes of the Carrenwell regime. The oppressive system that once depended on fear and magical privilege begins to collapse.

Ultimately, The Poison Daughter is less about whether Harlow can kill her enemies than about whether she can stop allowing violence to define her identity. Her poisonous kiss initially seems like a curse, but the novel gradually transforms it into a symbol of both her power and her isolation. Harlow must learn that strength does not always mean destroying the people who hurt her. It can also mean accepting love without surrendering her independence, confronting painful memories without being consumed by them, and choosing her own future. The ending therefore gives her something she has rarely possessed: genuine choice. After years of being treated as a weapon, a daughter, a political asset, and an instrument of vengeance, Harlow finally has the opportunity to become simply herself—and to decide for herself whom she will love and where she belongs.