Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix on January 14, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Horror, Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Pages: 496
Format: ARC
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They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who. Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.
This book was nothing like I thought it was going to be. Which was not a bad thing. I felt this was more categorized as a historical fiction than a sci-fi suspense. This book is a slow-burn, thought-provoking young adult fiction with horror and supernatural elements. I ended up feeling so bad for these girls. These girls are trapped in this house by circumstances adults forced upon them. A lot of the horror was from the graphic telling of their childbirth experiences. Be forewarned that this book includes some very graphic childbirth scenes.
I rated this novel 3.5 stars. I think what dropped it down for me was the fact that I was expecting something else. It was not necessarily a bad book. I wanted more horror and witchcraft. I think the most horrifying part of the book was the descriptions of birth, more so than the witch attacks. The birth is told realistically; the description of the pain the young women endure makes you shiver, reminding you of your own birth experiences. It’s really shaking you to the core.
Huge thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the advanced copy of this suspenseful historical fiction.