The Poison Daughter

A USA Today Bestseller

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

DELUXE EDITION: Featuring sprayed edges and full-color illustrated case—while supplies last!

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.

The hardcover edition includes an exclusive bonus chapter!

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 | “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

Praise for the Breakout Enemies-to-Lovers Dark Romance:
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “Dark romantasy at its finest — lush, violent, and emotionally charged.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ An absolutely WILD KU find. I feel like people are sleeping on this book and it was AMAZING!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “If you love Promising Young Woman meets A Court of Thorns and Roses, with the edge of The Serpent and the Wings of Night, this is your next obsession.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “I will once again be shouting from rooftops that Sheila Masterson is a storytelling genius and forever my favorite. I’ll always give her permission to rip out then mend my heart through the pages over and over again.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “This book was a masterpiece and I enjoyed every page. Now I want to start over and read the whole thing all over again.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “I can’t quite put into words how I feel about The Poison Daughter. Best book I read this year, truly.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “No notes. Dark fantasy/romantasy done the way it’s supposed to be done.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “If you like your romantasy on the darker side, with a hefty dose of Traumatic Backstory, a murderous (-ly hot) vigilante FMC, an MMC with lots of secrets, and kinky sex rituals????? THEN MAKE THIS YOUR NEXT READ”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “It's only January, but I already know this is going to be one of my favorite books of the year. If you're a romantasy fan, read The Poison Daughter immediately! You won't regret it.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “I will never be able to get married because this book ruined me. I am a ruined woman. AND I READ AN EARLY DRAFT. y'all are not ready for this. I cried so much.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “I devoured The Poison Daughter like it was the air I breath. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book this long as quickly. I couldn’t put it down!”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “A masterpiece that devastates before it pieces your heart back together—a must-read for Romantasy lovers of feminine rage, emotional devastation, and arranged marriage with a twist!”
★★★★★ “I do not hand out six-star ratings. Like, ever. But this book? Yeah. It earned it. I loved it. No notes. Dark fantasy/romantasy done the way it’s supposed to be done.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “To say I loved this book would be an understatement. From the banter, to the characters, to the plot, to the spice, this book had everything that made it impossible to put down.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “Immediately forwarding Sheila my therapy bill after finishing this book!!!”
| The Poison Daughter is Sheila Masterson’s seventh novel and her first USA Today bestseller. Her other works include the gothic fairy tale romantasy Song of the Dark Wood and 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.