Spooky season is officially here, and I could not think of a better time to dive into something dark, witchy, unsettling, and perfect for October. Our October Read with Cyn’s Workshop pick is Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix! 🔮📚

Set in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1970, the novel follows teenage girls sent to Wellwood House to hide their pregnancies, give birth in secret, and surrender their babies for adoption. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives frightened and powerless, but everything begins to change when a librarian gives her a book about witchcraft. Suddenly, the girls have access to something they’ve been denied by nearly everyone around them: power.

And because this is Grady Hendrix, I’m expecting our October discussions to be interesting. The supernatural horror is only part of the story; Hendrix drew inspiration from the real experiences of relatives who had been sent away while pregnant, using the novel to explore maternity homes, secrecy, control, and the treatment of young women.

This is definitely one where readers may want to check the content warnings before jumping in. The novel deals with difficult subjects surrounding pregnancy and maternity homes, and published study materials flag subjects including gender discrimination, pregnancy loss, sexual abuse, rape, and suicidal ideation.

I’m so excited to read Witchcraft for Wayward Girls with everyone this October. I’ve been wanting something appropriately spooky for the season, and a historical horror novel about pregnant teenagers discovering witchcraft while trapped in a home determined to control them?

Yeah. That’ll do it. 😂🔮

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

by Grady Hendrix

There’s power in a book…

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, 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.

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 knows she’s going to go home and 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.

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