The Poison Daughter
Will be published approx. on 18. August 2026
Book
Hardback
672 pages
978-1-63893-597-1 (ISBN)
Description
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
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
More details
Person
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.