He’s tackled haunted houses, possessed teens, and slashers. Now, as the title of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls states, Grady Hendrix gives readers a story about witchcraft. The story takes place at a “home for unwed mothers” – places where young, often teenage girls, stay during their last months of unplanned pregnancy so they can birth their children and give them away to wanting adoptive parents. Often, these girls are forced into these homes against their will by their parents. Often the Catholic Church is involved in these homes and the stigma of young, unwed pregnant girls weighs heavily on these girls. Grady’s story is set in 1970 as “Fern” enters the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida and finds solace in … you guessed it, Witchcraft.
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to 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 plans to 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.
Fern is the name given to our protagonist (real name Neva Craven) upon her arrival at the Wellwood House. Well, arrival is a very loose term because her father treats Fern like a filthy embarrassment, he foists upon somebody else to clean. Be that as it may, all the girls who ride out the last few months of their pregnancy are assigned names and are instructed not to share anything of their life before becoming residents of Wellwood. The whole purpose of these homes is for these poxes upon the good name of their families can go through a potentially traumatic event, one of the most momentous changes a woman can undergo, far and away from their families, seen as outcasts, discard their “mistake,” and return to their families as if their pregnancy never happened, the new life they birthed doesn’t exist. Please note that this summary of the situation is by no means my own thought and belief, but rather the theme Hendrix highlights, the very real stigma that these girls had to suffer underneath, and the method of that suffering, at that time in the country.
Upon Fern’s arrival, she is immediately brought into the fold, i.e. assigned chores, treated as “less than” by Miss Wellwood (whose father founded the house and organization), and aligned with her fellow young mothers-to-be. Rose, the outgoing, antagonist rebel of the group is dead set on keeping her child. Holly, the silent young mother to be, does not want her child to go to the father, Zinnia is of the belief that she’ll keep her head down and return to life with the boyfriend who fathered her child. These four girls form the backbone of the group we follow and there’s a realness and genuineness to these girls that is extremely impressive given that they are teenaged girls and the author of this novel (as he points out in the afterword) is a “childless middle-aged man” who is “probably the last person who should write a book in which every character is pregnant.
The highlight, especially for a smart, well-read young girl like Fern is the bookmobile. Hell, I remember the bookmobile visiting my grammar school and always being excited, so I can’t imagine how much more of an impact this kind of joyous visit would be for kids who are otherwise ostracized and treated just above intelligent cattle. When the enigmatic librarian of the bookmobile proffers Fern a book titled How to be a Groovy Witch, the magic starts. Our friend group learns minor magic spell, which leads them to think they can devise a spell or spells to magic their way out of their situation. But as these stories often relate, any kind of magic has a cost and some things are either unchangeable or very challenging to change.
Hendrix’s narrative style remains a strong point for his novels, easy-going prose, strong characters, relatable snarky descriptions. He does a lot of character building through the first third of the novel. The girls share their frustrations as well as physical and emotional with their situation. Miss Wellwood is built up as an easy to dislike antagonist, but as he always does, Grady allows empathy for his antagonist to seep in as the story moves through its phases. Supporting Miss Wellwood is the even-more insidious Doctor Vincent. While the emotional nastiness is on full display through that first third, don’t worry, there’s some gruesome nastiness once the witchcraft makes its presence known. Wellwood House reminded me a bit of Reverend Gardner’s Sunlight Home for boys in Stephen King & Peter Straub’s The Talisman.
The timeliness of this novel is hard to ignore. Even though it was initially slated for a mid-2024 publication, the current climate in the United States is … shall we say not very kind to women, women’s bodies, and women’s health. The attitude towards femininity and womanhood can be seen (by myself and many others) as having taking some steps back in the last few years, especially symbolized by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The unspeakable attitudes towards women, their value, their feelings, their simple personhood displayed in Witchcraft for Wayward Girls and its resonance with the creeping attitudes towards women today is perhaps the most horrific element of this powerful, poignant, fantastic novel.
One of Grady Hendrix’s greatest strengths in every novel he’s published is a sharp, insightful ability to tap into a cultural mindset and make that hook of his story a looming theme. That theme (whatever it is in his novels) is smartly told through his characters, and relays great empathy for those characters.
I want to take some space to lavish praise on this gorgeous cover. Grady’s been largely blessed with wonderful art adorning his novels and Avinash Weerasekera’s cover for the US edition is another in a line of powerful, eye-catching covers. Lava lamps are iconic objects of the era (1970s*) and the one at the center of this cover with the lovely covers, with the great font and use of font make for a book that demands to be pulled off the shelf and read.
Grady’s previous novel, How to Sell a Haunted House, published in January of 2023 and set the bar extremely high for horror novels that year. The same can be said for Witchcraft for Wayward Girls…2025 is off to a strong start for horror fiction and it will take an impressive novel to topple Grady’s release from the top of the list.
Highly, highly recommended.
* my parents were married in 1972 and I can picture the lava lamp we had in our house when I was growing up
© 2025 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | Berkley
January 2025 | 482
https://www.gradyhendrix.com/
Excerpt: https://www.avclub.com/witchcraft-for-wayward-girls-grady-hendrix-excerpt
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Berkley
