Boys, Girls and Beasts By Nathaniel Bivan

Wars are not easy to forestall, nor are enemies—within or without—easy to destroy.

In a world stitched together by fragile treaties and bound by the mysterious power of a super crop, the United Nations of West Africa has lived in fragile promise of peace—until it is shattered in a maelstrom of blood and smoke. For Jaka, a boy on the brink of manhood in the quiet village of Malovo, life is torn apart in an instant. War crashes down, sweeping him into a shadowy underworld ruled by forces darker than his worst nightmares.

Captured and forced into the ranks of a brutal militia, Jaka becomes a pawn of the Zohrar, an ancient race whose warriors wield the power to channel primal beasts. With each passing day, the line between boy and beast blurs, his humanity slipping away, loyalty twisted into a deadly instinct that battles against faint memories of home, family, and a life that feels like a dream.

As Jaka climbs through the ranks, uncovering the terrifying secrets of the Zohrar, he discovers he is now part of a mission older than humanity itself, a mission to conquer Earth. But when he is called to destroy the very land he once called his own, Jaka faces a choice that could alter the fates of two worlds.

Boys, Girls & Beasts is a fierce journey through the heart of darkness, where identity and survival are locked in a brutal struggle, and the difference between hero and monster is blurred by shadow. Enter a world where myth rises to life, and innocence is the first casualty of war.