The Enemy’s Daughter Melissa Poett

by Melissa Poett
The Enemy's Daughter Published by HarperCollins Publishers Limited on May 6, 2025
Genres: Juvenile Fiction / Family / General, Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance, Young Adult Fiction / Dystopian, Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Historical, Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Romance, Young Adult Fiction / Romance / Historical
Pages: 384
Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram,
Goodreads

A stunning reimagining of Tristan and Isolde set in a dystopian world woven with magic. An incredibly addictive debut YA enemies-to-lovers romantasy.

'I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!' Alwyn Hamilton

'Magical, romantic and deeply nostalgic' Sarah Underwood

It's been thirty-seven years since the Republic was destroyed. Now, the five clans and the Kingsland fight for control.

Isadora, daughter of the clans' leader, risks her life on the battlefield to help injured clan soldiers. But when she stops an attack from Tristan, a Kingsland assassin, his soldiers shoot her with a poisoned arrow. As Isadora lies dying, Tristan does the unimaginable: he offers to save her life using a rare magic.

Yet, in choosing to live, Isadora is unknowingly bound to the mysterious Tristan, through a magical connection that could allow him access to her emotions, her deepest memories and the very information he needs to destroy the clans ...

Review:

In a world being rebuilt from the ruins of destruction from bombing and poisoning of the world, a fight between factions — five clans and the Kingsland — results in the death of the latter’s leader, heightening tensions and issuing a power struggle. The daughter of one of the clan leaders, Isadora (also known as the white rabbit), goes to tend to injured soldiers when she stops an attack from a young man from the Kingsland. She must decide whether to turn him in or let him go. For at her heart, she is a healer. Before her choice can be realized, soldiers from Kingsland subdue her with poison. A poison meant to kill until Tristan surprises them all by calling upon a magical bond of his people that can only happen through marriage to save Isadora’s life— and bind her life to his. What follows is a journey into a world Isadora knows little of, is fascinated much by, and questions the answers she thought she once knew. This new world houses a boy whose heartbeat she can’t help but match with her own, resetting them on a much-unexpected path.

Isadora is a marvelous heroine. Her heart is kind and courageous, longing for peace and healing wounds. Her perception of the world is limited to what she was taught, so being thrust into the world of Tristan forces new perspectives, unexpected questions, and heartbreaking realizations. It changes her irrevocably, but no change is greater than what arises in her heart with knowing Tristan. Tristan may not have a POV, but his presence is paramount. He becomes as layered and complex a character as Isadora. We learn his grief, strengths, vulnerabilities, and how deep and faithful his love is. Isadora and Tristan are learning more about each other with this new connection that they are slowly discovering can have wide uses.

You believe the twists and turns in this novel are one series event for a majority of the novel, the classic tale of poor clanspeople versus well-off Kingsland, but is that the actual narrative or just what Isadora has always known? The truth will have wide suffering implications and change the world for the good or the bad, depending on how Isadora takes it. I appreciated this being a stand-alone with a satisfying conclusion.

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