Another Grady Hendrix book that did not disappoint!

I'm SUCH a big fan of Grady's, so I couldn't wait to devour Witchcraft for Wayward Girls—and I love the title. I was actually really impressed with just how eerie it was, without being too overtly 'this is a horror book', and I thought the girl's lives and what they experienced (which was incredibly harrowing and difficult to explore without coming across as superficial) was done very well. The writing is exactly what I've come to expect, and love, in Grady's writing. The historical context was quite interesting, although I would have loved to have read even more about it. There's a real darkness throughout that really grips you, and I managed to finish this over the weekend—I didn't want to pull myself aware from these girls!

Highly recommend and if you're a fan of Grady already, definitely add this to your TBR!

Thanks as always to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this ahead of many other eager fans.

This book was gripping, horrifying and deeply realistic. When I say horrifying it’s not a horror that’s tense and on the edge of your seat it’s the disturbing nature of what’s happening to these young girls and the effects this has. I know this is written by a man but I do feel that he explored women’s stories and rights well. There are some gory scenes and the child birthing is beyond brutal. The witchcraft element is creepy and dark. I also loved the characters, they felt like believable young women. Overall a great exploration of historical events with an added magical element that makes you feel and draws you in.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

Many thanks NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest feedback.

“You see, we’d been taught that the devil was the worst thing in the world, but we were too young to understand that there were worse things than the devil. We were too young to understand that their job was to convince us that the most natural thing in the world was evil, and the most evil thing in the world was natural.
For girls like us, down there at the home, the devil turned out to be our only friend.”

I love Grady Hendrix. I won’t say that his books are horror in the “real” way, because the only scary things in his books are the people. This is my fourth book by him and it was such a good one. To make you read it, I just want to post all the quotes from it.
The feeling I had while reading “Witchcraft for wayward girls” was rage. Rage for these girls that went through so many things because of the men and the adults around them.

“They were told over and over that all they could do was ruin their babies’s lives.”

“Witchcraft for wayward girls” is set in 1970, when women were seen only as tools for having children. It’s about religion towards women and so much sexism, it’s about feminism and it’s heartbreaking and powerful.
It’s about Wellwood house, a house where underage girls are sent by their families to birth their babies and then give them to strangers. After that, they are sent home and has to act as if nothing happened and just go on with their life. Because it’s so easy.
Life’s not easy in the house, as you can imagine.

“No one cares what you wish, my dear. Isn’t that your problem? No one cares what any of you wish, or hope, or pray. You speak, you cry, you scream, you beg, and what good has it done you?”

Neva is fifteen and she’s dropped off at this house by her father. There, she meets the other girls, and the adults that control the house. She has to change her name to Fern and follow the rules for her own good and the baby’s. Besides Fern, we have Rose, pregnant at not even eighteen, Zinnia, fifteen and Holly, who was raped at eight years old and no one believes her. And she doesn’t talk.

“Maybe doing witchcraft means you go to hell, but I don’t mind if it means I don’t have to go home.”

They follow every rule and try to make their life easier, until a librarian and her shop comes to them. She teaches them witchcraft and from them, their lives change again.

I loved everything about this book. The births are so realistic, they almost made me change my mind about having a baby. It really makes you think about how many things we endure as women and as mothers and I was raging about how the doctors acted towards these young girls.
“You’ll look like this one day. They hate us enough. Don’t let them make you hate yourselves too.”

While I wanted more horror and witchcraft, it wasn’t necessarily a problem not having a lot of it. The book is horror on its own. You can feel how powerless these girls were and how much they needed to take control over their lives.

“Daughter, student, whore. They change you in whatever they need you to be. Choose for yourself. For once in your life.”

I loved the writing, the characters, the story, the horror parts and how the story ended. I always cry at the end of his books, he just knows how to write a sad and beautiful story. I can’t say negative things about it because of these girls. I know it’s just a story, but it’s inspired from real stories. Women were not loved, we still aren’t loved by everyone. We are still seen as tools for having children and people still think that our “place” is in the kitchen. There is still sexism and hate and shaming and pure hate towards us.
This is what story is about. Women and their choices.

“They say she was wayward. They said it was all her fault. They said she had done something wrong. They lied. So why did none of them ever pay it? Why did someone else always pay? Someone like Holly. Like Fern. Like Zinnia. Like Rose.”

“We were girls: girls in trouble; unsocialized girls, fast girls, loose girls, emotionally immature girls, wayward girls. Whatever you wanted to call us, we were children.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
CW: Traumatic Birth, Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Racist Language

What I Liked
1) There were small moments of humour in such a dark book (as per usual with Grady Hendrix).

2) I definitely wasn't expecting what this book was but I was happily surprised by how well teen pregnancy in the 70s was explored and all the social stigma that came with it. This book was definitely more literary than his other work's and I'd say pick this up if you want a coming of age story with a sprinkle of horror towards the end.

3) I loved how much Fern's frustration with how society treats her for being a teen mum comes across and I truly felt for her. For instance, when the family finds out she's pregnant and has a meeting without her about it.

4) I loved how Rose was constantly being criticised for being such a performative activist because it was so obvious she was a rich girl trying to go against the establishment to seem edgy, rather than because she truly cared.

5) I loved the discussions of how the girls weren't educated on protection or how being pregnant and giving birth actually is. This is still a major problem in the US today and I think it's really important to talk about.

6) I loved how much of a focus female friendship was.

7) The horror towards the end was truly disturbing and made me so uncomfortable (birth is described in a very gory way so avoid this book if you can't handle that).

8) The end truly broke me. I got so emotional and actually cried this book was so moving. I loved how it talked about the nuance of saying a teen mum is better off giving up the baby and how that's not always true.

What I Disliked
1) I just want to highlight that racist language is used by a white author and I've seen some reviews say they feel he is tokenising black people. When this book gets released, I will definitely be seeking more opinions on this from black reviewers as this is the reason I can't give this book 5 stars because I also picked up on it throughout the book.

2) Some of the spells they would perform would become really longwinded and unnecessary.

Overall, I would suggest you read this if you like emotional, coming-of-age stories with a focus on friendship with a bit of horror and magic (I don't think the witchcraft is as big of a part of this book than I thought going in).

Thank you to Netgalley, Pan Macmillian and Grady Hendrix for this eARC in exchange for an honest review

I am always down for a book where people fight the patriarchy, and I'm also always down for a book where shit gets weird because people get mixed up in powers beyond their comprehension. Grady Hendrix took these two things and mashed them together in a successful and complicated way in this book.

I immediately found it hard to put this book down. There's a lot of characters to get to grips with straight away but it's interesting enough right off the bat that you want to get to know them. And they turn out to be fascinatingly complex individuals - fully fleshed out in their own right despite their introductions as "just another unwed teenage girl". I cannot fault the characterisation in this book at all, because even when characters were acting in awful ways I still felt pity for them, and for their lack of power over the situation they were in.

The pacing was a little off in the middle, with long periods of not much happening where the girls were mostly going back and forth on whether or not they wanted to do witchcraft. The tense parts where witchcraft was happening, however, were so so well done. Those pages really flew by.

The long page count, however, means that my frustration over how the girls were treated waned a little out of sheer boredom. When I think about it in hindsight, the way that the girls were told nothing about giving birth, the way that keeping their babies was never a real option, the invasive medical examinations they had to endure - these things really piss me off, but the book wasn't punchy enough to maintain this, so it just became a passing fury that only came up every 50 pages or so.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot but it didn't seem to be fully sure of what it wanted to achieve in the end - were witches a supernatural horror or were they the necessary evil needed to fight injustice? Was the true horror of the story the part at the end or was it the way that adults treat teenage girls? I think I'll be thinking about this book for a while.

So, that was my first book by the author, and I thout it was ok. It wasn't exactly to he kind of horror I like and I thought it was a little childish. I didn't hate it anyway and I love the characters and their love for each other, and I plan to try and read other books by him.

3 stars.
Fern gets sent to a home for wayward girls, young unwed pregnant girls, over the summer to have her baby and return home free from “sin”. The horror of this was unusual; it was more subtle in that we are looking at body horror, the horror of childbirth, the aftermath of that and the realities of sexual abuse.
The pacing of this was simultaneously slow and perfect, unusually for a Grady Hendrix it took halfway for the “true horror” to start but it felt like an easy read.
The characterisation is fantastic, you can truly feel the desperation of these young women in making the right choice for them and their babies. The relationships are complex, like how real life is, it throws characters together that have but one thing in common.
Despite its easy readability and the horror of the book based in the complexities of real life, I felt that for a Grady Hendrix it was very mid. Grady Hendrix to me, is always just pushing the boundaries of what you can handle with graphic imagery. I feel like the ending just fell short of the mark, satisfying in the way it wrapped up the story but not enough to be “horror”. That being said, I’d pick up another Grady Hendrix in a heartbeat!
Thank you to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for the opportunity to read this early.

This books has it all; horror, suspense and drama! It left me truly speechless so many times 😶 The Mother and baby homes in Ireland are no longer hidden history but I just never thought about how homes for pregnant girls would have also been a thing in other countries. It makes sense that before Roe v. Wade Americans would have forced unwed pregnant girls to hide away in these secretive homes.

The story is slow to start with our MC Neva renamed Fern arriving to Wellwood House. We learn about the mundane daily routine of the girls lives and how some of them ended up in the home. The story mainly focuses on just four girls Fern, Rose, Holly and Zinnia. Holly’s story was the most heartbreaking 💔

The plot really begins with the arrival of the bookmobile library and the librarian Miss Parcae who gives the four girls a book of spells. The spell book gives them hope and a taste for power but not all magic is good 🫣

The paranormal aspects were great but the truly horrific moments were the birthing scenes 😬 Grady Hendrix also went deep in to real life horror that girls were forced to face including abuse, forced adoption and shame of being unwed pregnant mothers. I was not expecting such a heartbreaking story but I did love it overall especially the ending ❤️

If you are looking for a horror witchcraft story with a mix of real life issues that sadly is still present in today’s world you need to read this book!

Oh, Grady Hendrix, you’ve done it again.

I’m usually a little wary of going into horror media that I’m aware ahead of time is going to deal with themes of pregnancy/body autonomy. It’s a very heavy topic in general, and lately, but also so much so to me specifically that I woke up with the worst cold I’ve ever had the morning after I started reading this book. And yeah, maybe this isn’t the best way to convince other people to read it but I mean this in the best way possible: this book actively assisted in fucking up my immune system enough that my nose is still running a little, a week (and tons of medicine) later.

In any case, the helplessness I felt from how weak I was contributed significantly to my immersion in this story, and even through the worst of my pain and lethargy I still had to force myself to stop reading this book and sleep. These girls haunted my dreams and nightmares and two therapy sessions so far.

There’s so much I want to say about it, and I have so many thoughts on the dehumanisation of little girls, and abortion should be a universal constitutional right! and god, witches are so fucking cool, but I can’t without spoiling it all. I'm a firm believer that this is a story that needs to be experienced first-hand. So, tl;dr: this book literally made me feel sick, and it’s one of the best things that I've ever read. I cannot recommend it enough.

How have I never read anything by this author before ? This book was just great, I have been missing out ! Will be seeking out more books by this talented author.

In St. Augustine, Florida, Wellwood Home stands, a home for unwed mothers, where girls are hidden away by their families so they can have their babies, put them up for adoption and everyone can forget the horrible sin they committed, and the families don't need to live with the shame of having a loose daughter.

Fern arrives at Wellwood Home on the summer of 1970 and is promptly abandoned there by her father, there she meets lots of other girls in her same predicament, like Rose, a hippie that insist she will keep her baby and have a home far away from the society that shuns them, Zinnia, a musician that knows she will go back home and marry her baby daddy and Holly, a mute girl barely 14 years old, pregnant by a stranger.

The home is oppressive, the rules too hard, and the girls are treated barely better than criminals. No one cares how they feel, no cares of this is the very first experience they have of strangers having access to their bodies… They were loose enough to get themselves “in trouble”, so anything that happens to them is their own fault.

So when they find a witchcraft book that promises to give them power, to finally give them the control over their lives and bodies, they take it without questions. Even if the price to pay for the power is more steep than they believe.


This is such a powerful book.
I am a huge Hendrix fan, so of course I was very excited when I got this book and I have to say that it did not disappoint.

I was expecting the descriptions and the gory details, I was expecting the dreadful horrors… I was not expecting for this story to resonate so much. And there lies the true horror of this book. People, you better ready your hearts because this book will scratch you up inside and it will hurt. The disrespect, the medical violence, the audacity of everyone treating these girls the way they do, controlling them, manipulating them, lying to them… It made me seethe, it nauseated me, it filled me with rage.

I have to be frank and say that many times I struggled reading from Fern's POV. Many of her choices are questionable, but then I had to take a step back and think that she is just a 15-year-old girl, a scared girl, an abandoned girl, a dirty shameful secret… And then I was feeling her powerlessness and how scared she was, and in all that you could understand her deep desperation to endure this ordeal so that everything can go back to “normal”.

This was a tough read, but I loved it, it is a well crafted story, it has enough horror to please the fans and a very realistic ending that hurts, but it's satisfying.

I'm quickly becoming a fan of Hendrix's horror style, so it was a no-brainer I was going to enjoy this.

The story follows Fern in the 1970's after she's been banished out of society's sight to a secluded 'Home' where pregnant unmarried teenagers give birth. I found the political insight into this generation of missing mothers really interesting, and for the first part of the novel, enjoyed it enough to completely forget about the witchy magic coming up. When things started to get deeper into the witchcraft, I found myself thinking how much I preferred the novel without it. I saw a review saying this would've been better as a literary fiction, and I am inclined to agree. It had enough legs to stand on as a literary fiction, whereas the coven of witches felt vague and unexplored in comparison.

Fern lacked as a main character until the last quarter of the novel, however characters such as Holly and Rose kept things interesting and the pace fast with their stories and fierceness. All the girls serve as harrowing depictions of our everyday lives, no matter the time period, and are uncomfortably relatable in their grief and rage. In comparison to others, Fern appeared almost dissociative of the whole experience until the last quarter - however this may have been intentional given how traumatising living in the Home must have been. In a time where women's rights are under siege, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a shining spotlight on why women's stories matter, no matter how much they deviate from the narrative of what is expected of us.

One thing to say about Hendrix, however, is how well they write gory horror. Whether you have a phobia of pregnancy and childbirth or not, this novel is not for the faint hearted when it comes to descriptions of birth and body horror. It would be impressive, if I was not reading with one eye closed!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the chance to review! All opinions are my own :)

With his usual dry humour, excellent description and gripping horror story this is Hendrix at the top of his game.

Grady Hendrix has recently become one of my auto buy authors - Horrorstor and The Southern Bookclub's guide to vampire slaying were absolutely epic so I had to request this book on Netgalley when I saw it.

I'm a recent horror convert, but I've come to love to adrenaline rush from speeding through the chapters where the final combat or conflict is happening. However, when the Southern Bookclub book got to a part where the character had literal insects crawling on them and then IN REAL LIFE a spider fell onto my face - I was a little bit freaked out to say the least. It added an entirely new dimension to the writing I was engrossed in.

I loved witchcraft for wayward girls nearly as much, and honestly the only thing holding me back from giving this book five stars was the face that I think it was slightly mis-genre'd (not a word). Pesonally, I'd class this book as a spooky witchcraft book with a dash of horror, not an entirely horror book itself.

Don't get me wrong I love that genre of books too - spooky witchcraft is the vibe of my life, and not just around Halloween. But being told this was a horror did make me feel like I was waiting for the big bad to jump out of the shadows at me, and nothing really hit the levels of horror-film vibes as I've got in Grady Hendrix's other novels. It hit 'eerie thriller' at the max maybe.

But it was a great read, aside from that issue. Seeing girls in the 60s who are pregnant and unmarried and what they had to go through at the time felt especially relevant in today's political climate. It fuelled my feminist rage.

The twists and manipulations they bombard these girls with to convince them that they're unfit and shouldn't keep their own babies was frustrating to say the least. And so many characters were built so well they all felt very 3d, with their own failings and good parts to make them seem especially real to me.

Honestly, if I were in the situation these girls were in, I could see the appeal that the witchcraft held to them too. The power that they had stripped of them in life, returned to them in a very different way.

This is a perfect read for someone looking for a feminist, witchy, and spooky read to sink into in the colder months. Just don't expect it to be at the super scary level of horror.

The Wellwood House for Unwed Mothers is home to multiple girls who are expecting a baby. All of them have been sent there to have their child, give it up for adoption, and then go back home and act like nothing happened. Wellwood House has seen more than its fair share of teenagers, and when Fern arrives, she’s just another Jane Doe to be added to a long list of Doe’s before her.

It’s 1970 and the middle of summer in Florida. Despite the situation she’s in, Fern finds friends amongst the other girls, all trying to make their time at the home pass as quickly as possible. Under strict control by the adults, no real names or details about their lives back home are to be shared. Remaining anonymous leaves them free to return to their lives afterwards, and so each girl is named after flowers or plants.

Each day is the same, until Fern meets a librarian, who gives her a book that is not so innocent as it would like to appear to be. From then on, Fern and her friends are quick to snatch the power available, unawares of the true cost of it. Every debt must be paid, because power like this doesn’t come for free.

This was my first Grady Hendrix book. I’ve had a few of his books on my TBR for ages, and when I received an ARC of this, I knew it was finally time to dive into one of his books.

It started off so well, really sucking me in and giving me all the details I needed about the house, the time it was set, and the people who helped run it. I was so invested in what was to come, sure this was going to be my next 5 star read. Except the middle was a slog. Everything seemed to slow right down to a point I considered DNF-ing. Instead, I skim read until it picked up again because I needed to know the ending, and a big chunk had to be skimmed to get near it.

The ending felt in the same tone as the beginning, but it wasn’t enough for me to have really enjoyed this book and forgiven the middle. I finished the book with very mixed feelings, because it started so well, with the middle such a let down, and the ending being just okay. I wanted a lot more from it, going into it with high hopes, but it just didn’t deliver unfortunately.



Did I like the book? Overall, no.

Did I love it? In the beginning.

Would I recommend it? If you’ve read and enjoyed any of his previous books, then maybe. If not, no.

Loved this book! Grady Hendrix is a master of the slow burn horror genre.
I’ve only read one of his books previously (My Best Friend’s Exorcism) and I loved that so I went into this with high expectations and it did not disappoint!

I have read so many Grady Hendrix books before and when I got the ARC of his latest novel, which will be released next year, I was so ecstatic!

The Witchcraft of Wayward Girls follows the story set in 1970--when abortion was illegal and underage pregnant girls were whisked to a place in Florida called The Home run by a Miss Wellwood. Neva is one of those girls when she was dropped off to the Home. Her name was changed to Fern and she meets other girls who are like herself--Holly, Zinnia and Rose. Miss Wellwood basically controls everything in the house--from what the girls eat to what the girls should do and read. When Fern comes across a book about the witchcraft, Fern and the three girls decide to use some of the spells mentioned in the book. The spells became successful but then while using these spells, comes a price as well...

This was quiet an interesting read actually. Nearly half of the book describes about the girls' life in the house, particularly when they were forced to give up on their babies and controlling the things that they should eat and do. But when the girls start coming across the witchcraft book then things started to get interesting. Though the whole story was fictional, the situation that these girls faced when they become pregnant out of wedlock and underage was emotionally disturbing--the child birth scenes are also a bit disturbing to read as well. I am not sure if the early 1970's were like that mentioned in the book but nonetheless, the author had done some research about the life of girls in the 1970's. In my opinion, this was one of the author's best books. This book portrays about how society has a way of dictating and controlling the women's life in every possible way which makes it also sad that it used to be like that back in the early 1970's.

Above all, besides the emotional and disturbing parts, there were funny parts as well. Though it is a horror book, there wasn't much scary or jump scare moments in the book in my opinion.

I enjoyed reading this book and give 4 stars to this book.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.

I really love Grady Hendrix as a writer so was excited to get an early copy of this new book. A group of teenage girls are taken to a home for unmarried mothers by their parents when they fall pregnant. The plan is to tell people at home they're at summer camp or wherever, the babies will be given up for adoption and they will return home like nothing has happened. The girls aren't treated well in the home and they are given a book by a mysterious woman that leads them down the path of witchcraft. It's a fun concept and there are some really good moments in this book but it's quite long drawn out and not as gripping as it should be at times. It's still a decent read though not the best I've read by this author.

I previously read and enjoyed Grady Hendrix's books so when I came across this one, I immediately requested it. Grady Hendrix's synopses are always so interesting and make you want to pick up the book. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is about teenage unwed pregnant girls who are sent to a home and anonymously give birth and continue with their lives. In a way, this home offers these girls a second chance. I found the pacing of this book to be slower than his other novels. While the plot was interesting, I was expecting more witchy elements. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I think that this particular story wasn't quite for me. However, if you liked the author's previous works, I definitely recommend giving this one a try as well. Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan | Tor Nightfire for the arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Firstly thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read this book early. It's actually my first book by Grady Hendrix and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author after this fantastic book.

This book is about unwed pregnant young girls in the 1970's.The young girls are sent away to a home for Weyward girls, where they give birth and then return to their families like nothing happened, a second chance at life. Their children adopted to others families more worthy to bring up.

We follow these girls as they develop friendships,
try to help one another face their problems.
Part way through the book the MFC Fern discovers a book for witches and they try to take some power back against the situation they find themselves in.

I found this book both heartwarming and heartbreaking and full of feminine rage with an undercurrent of witchy vibes.

I found Grady's writing style, unique plot and storytelling remarkable. I enjoyed getting to know all of the characters and their back stories, especially Fern, Rose and Ms Parcae.

The book initial pacing is quite slow but still has the power to drag you in from the start. But once the pace picks up you won't be able to put it down.

I don't want to give anything away, so there you have it, you just need to read it for yourself!