The deadly nightshade, or atropa belladonna, is no doubt a beautiful flower. According to Penny Dreadful, it lures you in with an intoxicating scent, just daring you to pluck it from the ground and claim it as your own. And despite the fact you know of its name and of its effects, you still can’t help but find yourself drawn to its deadly nature. And more often than not, this is the case: its elegance and lovely appearance would often make people believe that it’s harmless, delicate.

Yet, at the same time, not all of its family members are poisonous. For example, the lowly egg plant and humble tomato have often been used by humans for cooking. If anything, we even eat these plants on a daily basis. It’s gotten to the point where we could even experiment with them, asking ourselves what we could do to manipulate them, both scientifically and culinarily, to benefit ourselves.

Of course, just like with any family of vegetables, there has to be a black sheep or so. It’s the same way in our characters. We all have nightshade in our books, somewhere growing in the mist. It could take the form of a vampire waiting in the shadows, daring someone to come try to tame it, or a serial killer walking plainly in our midst. Many paranormal romance genres and supernatural books have taken this approach. For instance, in Parasite Life, by Victoria Dalpe, Jane must face the fact that she is a vampire who has been leeching off both her mother and anyone else that crosses her path. In Escape from Witchwood Hollow, by Jordan Elizabeth, Honoria stumbles across the woods in which the witch lives as she entertains the notion of bringing her parents back to life. The novella, In the Shadow of the Night, by Amelia Atwater Rhodes, has the protagonist thrust into a world he believes to be eternally damned. Even romances like Never Ever by Sara Saedi have hidden those poisons in a fantastical world where children are subjected to the tyrannical rule of a young man who never ages.

These characters represent aspects of the deadly nightshade we’re all familiar with. They, like the flower, were outliers. They were a certain kind of creature, or they knew something, that made them deadly. Even so, could they really be called that? That poison is used to ensure their survival, a defense mechanism that scares off people. Despite all our romanticizing of the flower, like the characters in our books, there’s a more realistic purpose as to why they are what they are.

The deadly nightshade is a flower that has carried many of our muses. Although it’s known for its poison, it also has a depth that many people tend to overlook. Just like our characters, the deadly nightshade represents taking on a role that others may find strange, or even wicked, just to further a plot line, or survive, for that matter.