Every tree in the sacred Forest of Laida houses a soul. And each of those souls will return to the mortal world for many future lives. But not all of them deserve to. Seycia’s father told her this story as a child, but he is now dead and his killer has put a target on her back. After she is chosen for her village’s human sacrifice ritual, Seycia is transported to the Underworld and must join forces with Haben, the demon to whom she was sacrificed. Together, they journey to the forest in the Underworld where all souls grow in a quest to destroy the tree of the man who killed her.

While The Phantom Forest is filled with fantastic supernatural settings, the publisher wanted to avoid generic fairy tale imagery and called upon our cover cooks to create an adult-oriented illustrated cover that conveyed a sense of wonder and adventure while captivating the young adult audience. To do this, our cover cooks illustrated the phantom forest with a symbolic single, striking image based on the description of trees in the Forest of Laida: tall as redwoods, but with whitebark like birch trees. The anthropomorphic roots evoke an otherworldly adventure, while the typeface treatment enhances the epic fantasy with a modern touch.