• Age: 10 to 18
• Grade: 5 to 12

A new novel in the award-winning Travis Keating/Prinny Murphy series.

Sigrid Sugden is a Shrike, a member of one of the toughest group of girls in school. They are experts at blackmail, extortion and bullying their terrorized classmates.

But one day, the Shrikes go too far. Sigrid realizes that their favourite victim, Prinny Murphy, is in real danger. She makes a decision that will save Prinny from danger but will turn the Shrikes anger and bullying against the former friend who betrayed them to the authorities.

For Sigrid, this is a transformative moment. She wants to be a better person and begins to reflect on the events that led to her being a Shrike. Participating in their mean pranks made her feel powerful and safe. But now, she realizes she needs and wants to turn over a new leaf - make new friends and be kinder to others. But overcoming her badgirl image is a whole lot harder to do than she originally thought. No one likes her, no one trusts her - no one is willing to give her a second chance. But then an unlikely ally comes forward to help her convince the rest of the students at school that she really does want to be a better person - her former victim, Prinny Murphy.

Shortly after the publication of her 2003 poetry collection, The Brevity of Red (2003), Jill MacLean‘s nine-year-old grandson Stuart asked her to write him a book with hockey and Skidoos in it. The result was The Nine Lives of Travis Keating (2008) which won the 2009 Ann Connor Brimer Award, was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children, 2010 Hackmatack, Silver Birch and Diamond Willow Awards, and was a KIND Children’s Honorable Mention Book for the Humane Society of the United States. Its 2009 sequel, The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy, won the 2010 Ann Connor Brimer Award. Both books are set in Newfoundland, where Jill’s family lived for eighteen years.Jill now makes her home in Nova Scotia, which is the setting for her third novel. Always an avid reader, she is delighted to rediscover the world of children’s literature. In her free time she gardens, canoes and hikes.

Jill MacLean's profile page

"MacLean is a magnificent author. Her pacing is faultless. Her short chapters are filled with drama. She pushes the story ahead, yet provides enough information about the characters so that readers care deeply what might happen to them. MacLean understands the minds of adolescents and the complexities of life for pre-teens and teenagers. The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden is a wonderful book.
Highly Recommended"
-- CM Magazine

"Jill MacLean has created a very realistic cast of intense and complex characters for this third novel about the young people who live in coastal Newfoundland. Each has a fair share of pluck; yet, there is a vulnerability that made my heart ache for them. Nothing is as it seems for these complicated young people... Bravo, Ms. MacLean! You have created another story told with reverence and understanding, giving us characters to love and admire despite the flaws that make them who they are. I am in awe of your storytelling. Travis Keating and Prinny Murphy have moved to the very top of my TBR pile. Thank you!"
-- Sal's Fiction Addiction