Daggermouth (2025) is a dystopian romance novel by American author H. M. Wolfe. Wolfe has written The Stories trilogy, which features a gothic romance in a dark academia setting. Daggermouth is the first in The Heart Duology, which is slated to end with 2027’s Python. Daggermouth explores the themes including The Psychological Violence of Totalitarian Regimes, The Moral Ambiguity of Political Violence, and Information as a Form of Power.

This guide is based on the 2025 Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of rape and sexual violence, gender discrimination, child abuse, child death. suicidal ideation, substance use, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Greyson Serel hesitates while executing two rebels at the command of his father, Maximus, the president of New Found Haven. He loathes that he has been forced to serve as the Executioner for this brutal, totalitarian regime, and he resists by smuggling medicine to rebels from the Heart, the central territory where he lives, to the Cardinal and the Boundary, the impoverished outer territories. Meanwhile, Shadera Kael, is an assassin from the Boundary, the impoverished outer ring of New Found Haven, who works with a rebel organization called the Daggermouths. She receives a dangerous contract to kill Greyson. Though her lover, Jameson Vine, urges her to decline, Shadera insists, considering the death revenge for her parents’ execution years prior.

Shadera sneaks into the Heart and watches Greyson. She wishes to kill him up close and catches him right before he is scheduled for an arranged marriage. Greyson initially fights, but then encourages her to kill him. He removes his mask, something that is forbidden to Heart elites. His father and intended bride see him unmasked, which is punishable by death. Shadera shoots him, almost fatally. She is arrested and he is taken to the hospital. While she is in the prison, various inmates sing a protest song on her behalf, encouraged that she took a stand against the Heart. They are all killed.

Greyson’s mother, Elara, suggests a loophole in the mask law: If Greyson and Shadera marry, they need not die. Maximus agrees, as this will let him show that he can control even the ungovernable Daggermouths. Shadera and Greyson only agree after Maximus threatens to kill their loved ones if they refuse. Jameson begins to worry about Shadera and plans a rescue. Callum, Greyson’s best friend, encourages Greyson to get information from Shadera while they are forced to live together in anticipation of their wedding. Greyson and Shadera, despite their mutual hostility, find themselves increasingly attracted to one another. Callum frets over his attraction to Lira, Greyson’s sister. Lira dislikes Callum’s efforts to protect her, as she has grown up in the political danger of the Heart’s misogynist regime.

Maximus brutalizes his wife and daughter over dinner, making Shadera realize that Greyson’s life has not been as privileged as she thought. Greyson is shot defending his sister, and Shadera tends his wounds. Callum tends to Lira. The rebels in the outer rings agree to work together against the increased violence coming from the Heart. As their marriage ceremony looms, Greyson explains to Shadera that there is a mandatory public consummation following the spoken part of the ceremony. She points out that this forced, public sex is rape. He swears he will die rather than force her.

Jameson and his allies try to rescue Shadera from the Heart, aided by Captain Mikel, a high-ranking officer in the Heart who is secretly Greyson’s biological father. Shadera refuses to go with Jameson, citing the threat against the outer rings. Greyson is jealous that Shadera almost left with Jameson, and the two kiss. A group of Veyra soldiers loyal to Maximus attack Greyson’s apartment. He and Shadera kill them all, except for one. Callum tortures the survivor, who reveals that Maximus is planning to mass murder the residents of the outer rings. When Lira arrives, she kills the survivor, who raped her years prior in an assault orchestrated by her father. Callum and Lira admit their love for one another after promising not to have any more secrets. Maximus arrests Greyson and Shadera for killing the Veyra soldiers. Shadera is badly beaten while Greyson is forced to watch.

Jameson and the other Daggermouths plan to fight against the Heart, as Maximus’s Veyra soldiers have begun killing residents in the streets. Callum and Lira join their efforts and soon meet Brooker, Lira’s presumed-dead brother, who is working with the Daggermouths. Brooker explains that he faked his death to help the revolution, though he later reveals that he actually is a double agent for Maximus. Mikel planned to help Greyson get free from the Heart by also faking his death, but the plan went awry when Shadera used her own gun to try to kill Greyson. Maximus seeks to divide Greyson and Shadera by disclosing that Shadera killed Brooker (whom Greyson still thinks is dead).

The rebels mobilize the morning of Shadera and Greyson’s Vow ceremony. Shadera is so injured that she can’t get ready on her own. They go to the ceremony, where they are pronounced husband and wife. The rebels’ plans go smoothly until Lira disrupts them; she has learned that the Vow ceremony will lead to Shadera being raped by senior Veyra soldiers, all arranged by Maximus. She has gathered a protest of women who have been brutalized by their husbands, who gather en masse in the plaza to stop the ceremony.

Brooker appears, revealing that he was actually a double agent working for Maximus all along. He kills Callum when Callum tries to defend Lira. Lira is dragged away by soldiers loyal to Maximus. Mikel dies protecting Greyson. In the novel’s cliffhanger ending, Elara reveals that she has been working as “Python,” a rebel organizer. She shoots Maximus, killing him.