Book Review: The Poison Daughter by: Sheila Masterson

Genre: Fantasy/Romance

Pages: 668 (Kindle Edition)

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️.5

⭐⭐⭐

Spoiler-free Review

Available on Kindle Unlimited

Summary

Harlow Carrenwell, daughter of the rulers of Lunameade spends her nights in secret. Saving women from their abusive husbands by killing them with her poisonous kiss. But Harlow's vigilante activities soon come to an end when her parents arrange her betrothal to their rivals: the Havenwoods. Henry Havenwood is dashing, dangerous, untrustworthy and to Harlow's dismay, immune to her deadly kiss. As Henry whisks her away to his families fort in the mountains, Harlow must act as a spy to discover what the Havenwoods truly want, why they have returned after 10 years and who holds the mysterious and devastating power of the Divine of Endings.

My Review

Another book that blew up on social media and didn't quite live up to the hype. While I enjoyed the book and the twists, the pacing was a bit off and the plot got lost in the middle. Not a page turner that I couldn't put down, but a good read.

Our leading lady is a prickly and hardened woman who has endured more than any person should have to endure at the hands of her parents. Her backstory was tragic and helped me understand why she is the way she is. While I liked Harlow, I did find that about 60% of the way through the book I was starting to get annoyed with her attitude. Her inner monologue was becoming very repetitive and there was not really any growth in her character until the end of the story.

Henry was a very likeable character and I enjoyed the dual POV. His possessiveness over Harlow was a very welcome quality on my end. Some of the decisions he made were actually quite frustrating, simply because they were just stupidly naive. This was a huge turn-off. However, I will say that it was refreshing to have a character who isn't "perfect" and makes obviously wrong decision and learns from it in the end.

Sheila Masterson's writing was very good and easy to follow! The world building was excellent and never had me questioning or misunderstanding. Some of Sheila's sentences were so beautifully written that I ended up reading them multiple times. A few gems in the middle of a paragraph that were so eloquent I couldn't help but write them down in my book journal.

The spicy scenes were indeed spicy and well placed throughout the story. If your into having an audience while you do the nasty, you will most definitely like this book.

The main plot point throughout the book was that Harlow needed to discover what the Havenwoods truly wanted with this arranged marriage and what they were hiding. Henry's responsibility was to discover the Carrenwell's secrets through Harlow to use these secrets against them. While this plot had excellent potential, it fell a little flat in the execution of the story. The characters didn't really accomplish what they were set out to accomplish. And it got a little lost and squashed by other plot points coming forward. There were constantly questions being asked and not being answered (all questions get answered in the end) However, I started getting restless at the never-ending list and how long it was taking to get a least one of them answered. That said, I was very glad that it was not just an info dump a the end of the story.

The side plots were very interesting and well thought out. Even though they overshadowed the main plot, it kept the story interesting and didn't completely take over the book.

I'm not sure how I feel about the romance between Harlow and Henry. I was convinced on Henry's end, but not on Harlow's. I think this is because of Harlow's inner monologue being repetitive, as well as the dialogue between the two of them being repetitive as well. There was a lot of organic growth in Henry throughout the book, but as I mentioned before, Harlow's growth all came at the end. That may be why I didn't really believe her almost sudden change in feelings toward Henry.

I just want to reiterate that Harlow had a very harsh upbringing and reasons for her emotional detachment. Perhaps it is just because I am so different from her that I found it difficult to relate and fully understand her reluctance to trust...?

This was a solid 3 stars. Not a book that will stay with me forever, but one I did enjoy reading. If you are into vampires (yes, this book has vampiric monsters), possessive MMC's and feisty FMC's, I would recommend reading The Poison Daughter for sure:)