"Riveting... tender, ferocious" ¿New York Times

Magic and monsters collide in this beautifully crafted, powerful, intense tale told through the voices of a diverse and rich cast of characters. An unforgettable novel from a rising star in fantasy fiction.

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend's trail of breadcrumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.

At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?

The world will soon find out.

Cadwell Turnbull is the author of The Lesson. He is a graduate from the North Carolina State University's Creative Writing MFA in Fiction and English MA in Linguistics. Turnbull is also a graduate of Clarion West 2016. His short fiction has appeared in The Verge, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Asimov's Science Fiction and a number of anthologies. His Nightmare story "Loneliness is in Your Blood" was selected for The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018. His Lightspeed story "Jump" was selected for The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 and was featured on LeVar Burton Reads. His debut novel The Lesson is a finalist for the Neukom Institute Literary Award. It has also been shortlisted for VCU Cabell Award and longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award. Turnbull teaches creative writing at North Carolina State University.