Set in a group home for pregnant teens, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a story of hope, sisterhood, and the dark powers all women possess. It wasn't the strongest of Hendrix's works, in my opinion, but it definitely adds to his mastery of giving an authentic female voice to his protagonists.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

“Power is not a material possession that can be given. Power is the ability to act and that must always be taken, for no one will ever give that power to you. Those who have power wish to keep it, and those who want power must learn to take it.”

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First off, thank you @berkleypub for the free gifted copy of Hendrix latest release! #berkleypartner

Grady Hendrix is one of my favourite authors and that is because he is able to write strong, powerful, dynamic, and complex female characters so well. All while weaving an engaging, horror novel that manages to not take itself too seriously, but also poke at societal issues around misogyny and race.

Witchcraft for Wayward Witches delivers fully on those aspects, but in a more serious tone than I have seen in his other works. Yes we still have the comedic elements to lighten the very dark mood but they are fewer and farther between than what we saw in My Best Friends Exorcism, Southern Book Club, or How to Sell a Haunted House.

I have a theory that it could be because this story may hit closer to home for Hendrix. He stated that the book was inspired by family members who were sent to these Maternity homes when were teenage girls.

“I tried to understand what they had been through, but I couldn’t wrap my head around how scared and isolated they must have felt. I tried to imagine what it was like to have a child but not know if they were alive or dead, sick or well-and I couldn’t.”

This is, in my opinion, Hendrix’s darkest novel yet and it is my favourite.

If you do pick it up I highly suggest checking out the content warnings first and if you would like to know more you can swipe right for the synopsis!

“We weren’t girls. We were never girls. We were witches.”

This book took me in from the beginning and it never let up. A story about unwed, pregnant teenage girls and their treatment by society - family and others. Being shipped off to a home to have their babies in secrets, the mind games to get them to give up their babies - some are willing,others are not. It really takes you through all the emotions and the author was just brilliant with showing us the complexities as seen from multiple points of view. And then through in some witches, or another set of people trying to take advantage of kids in a vulnerable emotional state. Th story is told perfectly, with the right amount of detail, characterizations and an interesting plot.

I feel like, as much as I want Grady to be hit after hit, there are moments when misses sneak in. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls follows a group of pregnant teens in the 70s, all sent by their parents to spend the duration of their pregnancy "with an aunt upstate" or "helping an ailing relative" -- in actuality, they're hidden away at a group home in Florida. The summer Bookmobile introduces them to a mysterious librarian and an even more mysterious book.

When it was good, it was excellent. But when the chapters slogged this one felt every bit of its 500 (!) pages.

› Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at Wellwood Home in St. Augustine Florida. She's 26 weeks pregnant. The Wellwood Home is 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". Miss Wellwood is very strict and the doctor that helps care for the girls is judgemental and gaslight them when they don't feel well. Fern meets many other girls here and forms friendships with Rose, Zinnie and Holly.

On a hot summer day, the bookmobile arrives and a librarian helps them choose a few books each, giving a spellbook to Fern. Could these spells be real? Who wrote the book? Will they be able to learn magic?

› I do want to warn you, that there is a lot of talk about pregnancy and graphic childbirth scenes. Told from Fern's perspective, this is a relevant story considering the current climate in the United States and the conversation around women's rights. A lot of the horror in this book comes from how women were treated in the 1970s (and honestly it looks like we're going back to that time sadly).
APPEAL FACTORS
Storyline: character-driven, issue-oriented, tragic
Pace: medium
Tone: emotional, heartwrenching, high-drama, nostalgic, suspenseful, thought-provoking, magical, challenging, dark, bleak, haunting
Humour: dark humour
Writing Style: well-crafted dialogue
Character: authentic, awkward, brooding, complex, flawed, likeable, mischievous, quirky, relatable, sarcastic, strong female, unlikeable, well-developed, diverse
Racial Representation: Multiracial

Read Alikes:
The Girls We Sent Away by Meagan Church
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
Foxfire

› Final Thoughts
• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a dark, emotional, and powerful book about motherhood, feminism, witchcraft and abuse of power. These "wayward girls" are really children and this experience destroys their childhood. With strong female characters who build unlikely friendships, this thought-provoking book teaches us that using magic comes with a cost.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Amazing as always, Mr. Hendrix. Obsessed is an understatement! Grady writes female characters so incredibly well, and this one is no different. I was rooting for all the young women, and I empathized so much with Neva's journey.

Witchcraft or Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix is a moody, slow-burn novel with shades of The Craft. The story follows a group of pregnant teenage girls sent to a group home to await the births of their babies. As they bond and navigate their challenging circumstances, they stumble upon witchcraft, setting the stage for a dark and eerie exploration of their newfound powers and some sweet revenge.

However, it takes about 30% of the book for the witchcraft element to even appear, which slows the pacing considerably. While the premise is intriguing, the story felt flat to me, lacking the gripping energy and action I expected. If you’re a fan of Grady Hendrix’s signature style, you’ll likely still enjoy the atmosphere and tension, but it may not hit the mark for every reader.

For me, it wasn’t as strong as some of his other works, but if you love slow-building stories with a focus on mood and character, you might find this one worth the read.

I was ready to sell my soul for an advanced copy of this book and luckily I received one and my soul remains intact! The synopsis of this story sold me from the get-go. Young girls in the early 1970s who get sent to live down south in a maternity home when they find themselves pregnant. Add in witchcraft, a thirst for revenge, and a thirst for bodily and matriarchal freedom and I was hooked!! I read my print copy and simultaneously listened to the audiobook on @prhaudio and I thought the narration was done so well!

I will say that this book is longgggg! I feel like it could have been shortened some but I really loved the ending of this book. The epilogue was so powerful and had me tearing up at the thought of what these young girls went through with birthing their babies just to have them taken away and put up for adoption. It's heartbreaking and infuriating that this is something that many young girls and women really went through and still go through. I love that Hendrix had these young girls fight back for power and control.

For a Hendrix novel, I will say this book is on the tame side of horror compared to many of his other books. There is some body horror and I am grateful that I already gave birth to my three children before reading this or I may have been scarred after reading some of his birth scenes!

I do think this book is worth the read and I recommend picking it up today on pub day!! You are guaranteed a book that packs a lot of emotion, power, and resilience within it!

This is my second Grady Hendrix book and I loved it! This story takes place in the 1970’s and things get a little crazy. We meet girls that have found themselves in a not so great a predicament and are sent away. How my mind was blown on the ways things were handled in the 70’s era. This story is about friendship and resilience. I loved how Grady pulled me into this story, it was so hard to put this down once I started it. I highly recommend to anyone looking for the next addictive read!

A fantastic new novel from Grady Hendrix. They have a way of writing such well-rounded realistic characters put in horrible circumstances. One of the best books I've read in a while.

Not really sure how I feel about this. I think I'm going with 3 stars. It felt longer than it needed to be and the beginning was really slow to me. I wanted more intensity, more witchcraft. I guess because it was Grady Hendrix I was expecting more on page horror, I don't really know. The intense parts of the book were really good - everything from Holly's birth after - but it took too long to get to that point for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback. Grady Hendrix continues to have a magical Negro problem in some of his writing, but the rest of the setting was done really well.

Grady Hendrix has done it again. Just when you think he can't top his last book he does. I was leery about a man writing about not only pregnancy but teenage pregnancy in the 70's. Not only does this book dive into the horrors that teenage girls had to go through being unwed and pregnant but the supernatural element made this read magic. My first 5 ⭐️ of 2025. The magic, anger, frustration and perseverance the girls all go through and the way Hendrix writes each girl is 👩‍🍳 💋. This is a must read!

This was super interesting and I really enjoyed it! I haven’t read any of his books so I didn’t know what to expect. My friend said that she expected more of a thriller so she was disappointed. But because I didn’t know what to except, I really liked it! The magical aspects were cool and not over the top!

Hendrix has become such a reliable author, and this one is no exception - he writes women very well, in my opinion. My only quibble with this one is that there's a bit of a "magical Negro" business going on, subverted partially by the specificity of the characters but still there just a little bit.

LOVED!!! It's such a perfect mix of action-packed historical fiction and supernatural spookiness. I wanted it to be a bit scarier, but overall, great!

This book is perfect for any fan of Grady Hendrix who loves witchcraft. It was the perfect mix of horror, fun and exploring important topics

Grady Hendrix is my favorite *Historical Fiction* author I said what I said 🖤💅🏻. (Ok, Kristin Hannah is up there too 😊.)
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“But wait?! Hendrix writes horror, thrillers, suspense, supernatural fiction!”
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Ok, yes. And this book has all of that. But after this book set in the 70s, and The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires set in the 90s, you cannot deny that the man is also an amazing historical fiction author.
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His masterful descriptions totally embody an era. You feel like you’re there. He also highlights major social justice issues of the time. (Also, if you’ve ever been to a Grady Hendrix author talk, you know he researches his books like no other.)
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This is a feminist book. It’s a book about pregnant teenage girls who have been fed the message that they are a shameful disgrace. They are carted off to a home for unwed mothers, where they are stripped of their power and bodily autonomy, shoved into this crevice of society. The adults who run the house strictly control every facet of the girls’ daily lives.
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The girls have no power. That is, until it’s offered up to one of them in a book of spells and a witch willing to help. A group of girls begin to cast and turn the tables on the adults “in power.”
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Unfortunately, the help of a witch is never free. There’s always a price to pay. But what lengths will the girls go to in order to protect each other?
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I laughed, I cried, I cheered. This book broke me down and built me back up. It gave me all the feels 🥹🖤.
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This is going to be in my top 10 of 2025! Thank you @berkleypub and @netgalley for the eARC!
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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls - Grady Hendrix
5/5⭐️
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TWs: talk of past SA; descriptions of childbirth.

From the publisher:
There’s power in a book…

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.

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master” (NPR).

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix was published January 21, 2025 by Berkley.

My Thoughts: I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. After reading a few reviews prior to reading the book, I wasn't at all sure that I was going to like this book, but I did. I liked the girls and felt for them. They were united by the way that their families had treated them when they found out they were pregnant. Also living at the home united them. They all had the same experiences and the same close supervision.

The magic system was different. Magic always has a price in order for it to succeed. What the price in this case was, is interesting. I hadn't seen this cost quite this way before. And there were some clever bits related to this. In particular, the girls use the magic against some adults. This held consequences both for the adults and the girls, but afterwards, it was like the adults forgot about what happened.

The book had a slow beginning. This was mostly because of what was needed to set the scene. Still, I would have liked the magic to start sooner. After that. things move faster. And there are twists and surprises. I liked that it was not totally predictable nor was it preachy. I would have preferred a tad more humor as in his other books, But considering everything - the weightiness of the topic, the timeliness, it makes total sense. I also was not a fan of the graphic birthing scenes.

I would recommend this book to people who have enjoyed Hendrix's other books. And I would also recommend this book for people who enjoy magical realism in a historical setting.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. This did not affect my opinions nor my review.

Grady Hendrix always gives the casual horror reader a little more than expected. This was a great story, the setting for the witchcraft at the school for pregnant girls was spot-on. I liked the slow burn, knowing something magical was going to happen but taking the time to lay out the characters and the struggles at the school first.