Book Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix


If you’re a fan of horror books, chances are you’ve read at least one Grady Hendrix novel. Each of them has centred on a different kind of horror, from the demonic possession in My Best Friend’s Exorcism, to the vampiric threat in The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, to the haunted house chills in How to Sell a Haunted House. All of these novels weave in classic horror elements but they deal with more complex, real life troubles and traumas too. That’s certainly true of the author’s latest book, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, which tells the story of four pregnant teenagers sent to a home for unwed mothers in the 1970s.
Fern is just fifteen-years-old when her father drives her to St. Augustine, Florida and leaves her at Wellwood House, a maternity home where girls are sent to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption and then forget any of it ever happened. There, Fern meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Girls who are blamed and made to feel ashamed for their situation. There’s Rose, a hippie who intends to keep her baby and escape to a commune. There’s Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And lastly, there’s Holly, who’s mute and the youngest girl at barely fourteen. These girls couldn’t be more powerless but at least they find comfort and companionship in each other.
Every moment of the girls’ waking day is controlled by adults who don’t know them but claim to know what’s best for them all the same. Then one day they meet a librarian in a visiting bookmobile who gives Fern an occult paperback about witchcraft. Initially sceptical, Fern and her friends discover that the book holds real, genuine power. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and the girls quickly learn that the gift of witchcraft doesn’t come for free. There’s a price to be paid, often in blood, and if they don’t give it willingly, it’ll be taken from them by force.
You can’t beg the world to do what you want. You can’t ask it nicely. You must force the world. You must bend it to your will.“
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is very much a novel of two halves. The first, which sees Fern arrive at the home and befriend the other ‘wayward girls’, plays out with a nostalgic 70’s vibe (complete with lava lamps, hippie culture and Paul Newman/Donny Osmond appreciation) and a darkly comical edge. There’s an almost unreal feel to Fern being left at the home, a disbelief that this kind of thing could have actually ever happened, even though we know it did, and not just in America either. But then the ‘How to be a Groovy Witch’ paperback appears and the disquiet kicks up a notch. As the girls begin dabbling in witchcraft they don’t fully understand, the story takes a more sinister turn.
Hendrix’s writing effortlessly blurs the lines of emotional trauma, visceral horror and an exploration of what witchcraft actually is. There are multiple layers of fear to this story, whether it’s the initial panic of abandonment the girls experience, the apprehension of not being told anything about what pregnancy actually entails, or the distress of being forced to give up a life that you’ve grown inside your body for nine months. It’s hardly surprising that these vulnerable girls turn to witchcraft in a bid to claw back a tiny scrap of the power that’s been stolen from them. And yet these unseen traumas seem to pale in comparison to the horrors that materialise when the librarian’s book lands in their hands and they’re plagued by a dark, witchy presence that won’t leave them alone.
You might be questioning a male author’s decision to write about a theme so inherently connected to womanhood. It’s a question that Hendrix has pondered himself. “I’ll admit it’s probably biting off a lot for the childless, middle-aged man to be writing a book in which every single character is pregnant…” he says. And it is… but he handles it so astutely and convincingly that you really wouldn’t know it was written by a childless, middle-aged man. Like Rosemary’s Baby before it, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls takes something natural and gives it an ominous occultist twist. It’s at times funny, frequently heart-wrenching and constantly unsettling, and it’ll continue to haunt your thoughts for days after reading it.
★★★★
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls was published by Pan Macmillan on 16 January 2025