The Forest Demands Its Due

Description

A Lesson in Vengeance meets The Taking of Jake Livingston in this page-turning dark academia novel about a queer Black teen who discovers the sinister history of his boarding school and the corrupt powers behind it all. A USA Today bestseller!

Regent Academy has a long and storied history in Winslow, Vermont, as does the forest that surrounds it. The school is known for molding teens into leaders, but its history is far more nefarious.

Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent’s king-making; he’s just trying to survive. But then a student is murdered and, for some reason, by the next day no one remembers him having 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, unearthing secrets that have been buried for centuries. A vengeful creature wants blood as payment for a debt more than three hundred years in the making–or it will swallow all of Winslow in darkness.

And 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.

A high-octane mystery of murder and magic for fans of Ace of Spades, House of Hollow, and Get Out!

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Kosoko Jackson
Published: 08/19/2025
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
ISBN: 9780063260801
Pages: 432
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 1.20″ H x 7.60″ L x 5.10″ W

About the Author
Jackson, Kosoko: – Kosoko Jackson is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the USA Today bestseller The Forest Demands Its Due, as well as two other young adult novels, Survive the Dome and Yesterday is History. He also writes adult books, including The Macabre (Harper), I’m (So) Not Over You, and A Dash of Salt and Pepper. He lives in New Jersey. Visit him at kosokojackson.com.