D6 Member, Julie Stielstra, Publishes New Youth Novel

SCRATCHED
The Kid on the Backstretch: New Youth Novel on the Other Side of Horse Racing
by Julie Stielstra

ISBN: 9781088055786 (pbk., $10.00) - 99 pp.
ISBN: 9781088055854 (ebk., $4.99)
Publication: August 15, 2022
Intended Audience: Ages 12-18
Distribution via Ingram, Amazon, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org

[LYONS, IL, August 2022] Fifteen-year-old Luis Romero has lived his whole life on the back side of horse racing. Seven days a week, undocumented people like his mother Blanca live and work to feed, groom, exercise, care for, and clean up after the high-strung horses with long pedigrees. It's not just your job - it's your home, your life, your community. Lose the job, and you lose everything. A cheap trainer with a pill habit entices Luis to help her take care of her horses, pulling him deeper into a future on the track... but when Blanca takes up with a security guard with another agenda, it may all fall apart. Luis has to decide, for the sake of his family and his life, what race he really wants to run.

Julie Stielstra divides her time between the Chicago area and rural Kansas. Her family has been involved in thoroughbred horse racing for many years, as trainers, riders, and in services to backstretch workers. She is the author of nearly three dozen published short stories and essays. Minerva Rising Press named her historical novella Pilgrim the winner of their 2016 novella contest, and in 2021, her novel Opulence, Kansas from Meadowlark Press won gold medal awards for Young Adult Fiction from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association and the High Plains Book Awards.

Visit her at https://juliestielstra.com.

Order at Bookshop.org