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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
"Superb ... a perfect horror for our imperfect age.” – The New York Times
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
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).
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
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).
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Community Reviews
“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” focuses on Neva “Fern” Craven and a slew of other girls who are shamefully sent off to Wellwood Home, after becoming unwed & expectant mothers in the 1970s. The girls come from very different backgrounds but they have many things in common besides just being young, pregnant, and unwed. They endure strictness and trauma at the hands Ms. Wellwood and her accompanying staff until one day they decide that they’ve had enough, and attempt to take matters into their own hands to regain their power. I was surprised that this book was authored by a gentleman as it delves into sometimes graphic and gory scenes that come along with pregnancy and birthing. It also touches on topics that I think could normally be quite hard for a man to understand from a women’s perspective like grooming, SA, adultery, and what it feels like to be forced to give up your child. However, in my opinion, Grady Hendrix, knocked this book out of the park. The characters were realistic in their inexperience and naivety but also in their boldness and curiosity. I found the buildup of the storyline was paced a little slower than expected but in the end it made sense and I was reeled in. I for-see this story ticking people off but that’s what good books sometimes do right?!? Overall I really enjoyed it and the ending gave me literal goosebumps!
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