The Scratch Daughters

Ages 14 And Up, Grades 9 And Up

The Craft for Gen Z: The Scratch Daughters, indie bestselling author H. A. Clarke crafts a brilliant, award-nominated sequel to The Scapegracers: a raw and roiling tribute to queer lineage, to finding oneself, and to the deep love of chosen family.

Sideways Pike is desperate. It turns out that Madeline Kline didn’t want to make out with her; infinitely worse, she was only flirting to get access to Sideways’ specter. Madeline has ripped the magical soul out of Sideways’ throat, and with it, everything that makes a witch feel whole. Madeline would know: the Chantry boys took hers, and she’s going to use Sideways’ specter to hunt them down and get it back.

Sideways Pike, lesbian witch extraordinaire, isn’t going to let little things like a treacherous crush or a brutal family of creepy witch hunters stop her, even if it means tracking down Madeline without the Scapegracers—her best friends, her coven, the girls she’s come to love ferociously above all else. But Sideways and her trusty bike are in for a bumpy ride . . .

Story Locale:Contemporary, fictional Midwest town

Series Overview: Book 2 in The Scapegracers trilogy, book 3 (The Feast Makers) is out April 2024.

About the Author

August Clarke is here and queer, etc. They have been published in PRISM international, Portland Review, and Eidolon. He was a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction and a Locus Award, Dragon Award, and Pushcart finalist. They researched queerness, labor, and monstrosity at the University of Chicago. Under the name H. A. Clarke, he is the author of The Scapegracers trilogy.

Author Residence: Chicago, Illinois