Belladonna is the short story prequel to Poison Garden, an urban fantasy series featuring Eliza Moore, a private investigator who can talk to the dead.

Eliza “Eli” Moore is the scion of the famed Moore line of seers, and she wishes everyone would stop talking about that. She just opened her own detective firm, and wants nothing more than to live a nice, quiet, non-magical life.

Then her first case falls into her lap, and it’s a doozy: someone is using belladonna to murder the residents of a nearby assisted living facility. As a seer, Eli is familiar with poisons; in fact, she still tends her grandmother’s poison garden. Knowing how deadly belladonna can be, Eli takes on what she hopes will be her last supernatural case.

When bleeding hearts appear, what does it mean for seers?

Eli’s doing her best to run Nine Lives Investigations, keep the local witch clans happy as the new Mistress of Seers, and navigate her newfound closeness with Dan. Although, she’s not really leading anything, and truth be told she’s fine with the supernatural community looking after itself. What’s not fine is that she and Tessa have been tracking Nathaniel Beauclaire for months, only to hit one dead end after another.

When bleeding hearts start popping up all over town-out of season, mind you-Eli wonders what the universe is trying to tell her. Before she can figure out what the plants mean, someone threatens the clan elders, a group of (lame) ghost hunters begin dogging her every move, and she and Dan are attacked by a demon. Worst of all, each and every clue points toward Eli’s ex, Amir, a power-mad seer she hasn’t seen in years and never wants to see again, as the mastermind behind every piece of bad news.

Amir’s ultimate goal becomes known, Eli hatches a mad plan to stop him for good-then a family secret comes out which could derail everything, including her newfound leadership of the seers. Will she fight for the title she never wanted, or will Amir take everything from her yet again?

Eli never wanted to lead the seers, but she’s sure as hell not going down without a fight.

Eli was born to be the Mistress of Seers. Too bad everyone doesn’t feel that way.

Eli’s bid to be named the Mistress of Seers was a disaster. Those who are witchborn cannot lead the seers, and Eli’s just learned that her mother was a witch. But that’s not why the clan elders won’t follow her—it’s because of her newly discovered curse. Instead, they pick her rival and ex-lover, Amir, as their leader.

Since Amir blew up her apartment right before he claimed her rightful position, Eli’s been staying at Dan’s place. Things are moving fast between them—maybe too fast—then Eli’s life goes from bad to worse and she doesn’t have time to give in to her insecurities. Dan’s job is on the line, Tessa searches for a way to save the witch elders from Amir’s cruel plans, and Eli struggles to understand where her curse came from. All of the clues they uncover point toward Eli’s mother.

Eli tries not to think about her mother too often. After all, the woman had abandoned Eli as a child, and in a psychiatric ward at that. But Eli needs answers, so she probes her family’s history. Along the way she learns that she’s more closely entwined with the local witch cans than she ever realized. Then Amir begins killing witches—some with a slow descent into madness, others publicly and messily—and Eli realizes she’s out of options. She reaches out to her first enemy, someone who tried to control Eli’s destiny before she was ever born: Sarah Allwood, the witch who started it all.

But, what could Sarah have to do with Eli’s mother? Eli hasn’t seen her in twenty years… then Eli learns that the last time her mother visited her, she had a thornapple blossom in her hair.

The timeline is broken, as is Eli’s heart. Will she be able to fix either of them?

Dan takes Eli home for the holidays to meet his family. What could go wrong?

While Eli and Dan are away in New York, Tessa and Alex have an adventure of their own.