Lambda Literary Award winner and acclaimed author, Kosoko Jackson, explodes onto the horror scene with The Forest Demands Its Due, a chilling examination of how society perpetuates violence against marginalized teens. Jackson is a literary powerhouse whose holistic representation of Black, queer youth spans across genres. 

The Forest Demands Its Due aims to encourage young people to push back against the manipulative world of the elite and to step into their power.

Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent Academy’s king-making or nefarious history; he’s just trying to survive. Until a student is murdered and the next day no one remembers he ever existed, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper’s son, Everett Everley. In his determination to uncover the truth, Douglas awakens a horror hidden within the forest surrounding Regent, unearthing secrets that have been buried for centuries. A vengeful creature wants blood as payment for a debt more than 300 years in the making—or it will swallow all of Winslow in darkness. For the first time in his life, Douglas might have a chance to grasp the one thing he’s always felt was missing: power.

But if he’s not careful, he will find out that power has a tendency to corrupt absolutely everything.

Kosoko Jackson is the author of YA novels championing holistic representation of Black queer youth across genres, including Yesterday Is History and Survive the Dome and a Lambda award winner for his adult romantic comedies. He works as a digital media specialist focusing on digital storytelling and email, social, and SMS marketing. His work has also been featured on Medium, Thought Catalog, The Advocate, and in several literary magazines. He lives in New York, NY, and you can visit his website at kosokojackson.com.

Nicole D. Peeler writes urban fantasy for Orbit Books and, in her spare time, is an associate professor at Seton Hill University, where she co-directs their MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. Having recently finished the final book of her award-winning Jane True series, she is looking forward to the upcoming publication of Jinn and Juice, the first book in a series about a cursed jinni living in Pittsburgh. Nicole also lives in Pittsburgh, although she’s neither cursed nor a jinni.  She’s also a proud member of the League of Reluctant Adults and an alumna of both Boston University and The University of Edinburgh.