The Scapegracers

An Indie Bestseller! 2021 Locus Award Finalist for Best Young Adult Novel 2021 Dragon Award Finalist for Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel "As tender and intimate as it is ferocious and volatile, Scapegracers deserves to be this generation's go-to grimoire. May it launch a thousand covens of angry, loving, brilliant girls." -Amal El-Mohtar in The New York Times Book Review Holiday Books Guide The Craft for Gen Z: The Scapegracers is an award-nominated, indie bestseller about witchcraft and friendship among a hell-raising coven of teen girls, told in an unapologetically fierce, inclusive, and vibrant voice. Skulking near the bottom of West High's social pyramid, Sideways Pike lurks under the bleachers doing magic tricks for bottles of Coke. As a witch, lesbian, and lifelong outsider, she's had a hard time making friends. But when the three most popular girls pay her forty dollars to cast a spell at their Halloween party, Sideways gets swept into a new clique. The unholy trinity are dangerous angels, sugar-coated rattlesnakes, and now-unbelievably-Sideways' best friends. Together, the four bond to form a ferocious and powerful coven. They plan parties, cast curses on jerks, and try to find Sideways a girlfriend, all while eluding the fundamentalist witchfinders hell-bent on stealing their magic. But for Sideways, the hardest part is the whole "having friends" thing. Who knew that balancing human interaction with supernatural peril could be so complicated? Rich with the urgency of feral youth, The Scapegracers is an atmospheric, voice-driven novel of the occult that explores magic, growing up, and the complexities of friendship with all the rage of a teenage girl.

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.