Yahoo Lifestyle Exclusive: Grady Hendrix's ‘Witchcraft for Wayward Girls’ Excerpt Feels Like a Powerful Magic Spell
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Grady Hendrix proves that there's never a bad time for a good scare. The horror master is back and ready to leave us with some major chills thanks to his latest novel that you certainly won't be able to put down until the very last page. It's almost as if he puts his own magical spell into it. And considering the fact that this is his first time writing about witches, it seems very fitting.
Cosmopolitan has an exclusive look at Grady Hendrix's Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, which is set to be released on January 14, 2025. The book follows a group of girls who have been sent by their families to Wellwood House in order to hide their pregnancies from the rest of the world. But when they get a book about witchcraft, well, the power shifts in more ways than one. Check out the official description below from our friends at Berkley:
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).
Trust us that when we say that you won't be able to look away from the page as soon as you start reading. Ready to get your heart pumping and dive into this story? You can check out an exclusive excerpt below! Just make sure to pre-order the book and also check out some of Grady's books while you're at it! Oh, and did we mention that Grady wrote an exclusive intro for us as well?
Set in 1970 in a home for unwed mothers in Florida, 'Witchcraft for Wayward Girls' is about four pregnant teenagers—Rose, Fern, Holly, and Zinnia—who have been hidden from the world to have their babies. They don't know what childbirth will be like, they don't know what will happen to their babies afterwards except they'll never see them again,
and no one will answer their questions. The doctors say their morning sickness is all in their minds. The social workers say they should pretend none of this ever happened. The only person who provides them with any information is Miss Parcae, an elderly librarian who visits once a month at the wheel of the local bookmobile. She gives the girls a book called 'How to Be a Groovy Witch' that seems like a supermarket paperback containing a bunch of fake spells, but the spells cure their morning sickness. The spells let them take revenge on their enemies. The spells seem to work. But only a few of them. The rest are written in a language the girls can't understand. Now, in the middle of the crushing June heat of a Florida summer the girls sneak out of the house to go swimming, following an enormous black dog that seems to have been sent by supernatural forces. - Grady Hendrix
An Excerpt From Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
By Grady Hendrix
Read by Leslie Howard, Hillary Huber, Sara Morsey
“Ahem.” A woman cleared her throat.
They pushed away from each other, arms and legs flailing, reaching for bathrobes and nightgowns, arms wrapping around their bodies, covering their breasts, heads swiveling, looking for the voice.
The librarian stood on the riverbank above them, the big black dog sitting beside her. Its twin sat on her other side, mirrors of each other, tongues lolling out, panting soundlessly, staring at the girls.
The librarian stood between them, hands clasped, handbag looped over one wrist, heels touching in their clunky black librarian shoes, her face bland in the soft moonlight. She wore a black jacket with red piping over a black skirt. She looked like she should be behind the desk collecting overdue fines, not standing in front of four naked girls covering themselves up with their nightgowns.
Finally, Rose said, “Can we help you or something?”
“I believe you’ve been using my book,” the librarian said. “To cure various intestinal complaints.”
Automatically Fern tried to calculate how much trouble they were in.
“Very creative,” the librarian said, and the corners of her mouth lifted in a grandmotherly smile. “When I heard that, I thought, I really must speak to these girls.”
“How long have you been spying on us?” Rose asked, rolling up her T‑shirt to pull it over her head.
“Stop,” the librarian said, and Rose stopped. “You should remain skyclad. That’s what it means, you know. Exposing your body to the light of the moon.”
“You’re a witch,” Fern said.
“No, dear,” Miss Parcae said. “I’m a librarian.”
She started carefully down the bank toward them. Her dogs stayed behind, motionless. Zinnia couldn’t take her eyes off them.
“Are those your dogs?” she asked.
“My dogs?” Miss Parcae looked back at the dogs like she’d never seen them before. “I certainly don’t own them. They seem to enjoy my company, but they come and go as they please.”
“I really wish they’d go,” Zinnia said.
Miss Parcae reached level ground. Her heels sank into the wet sand and she had to swing her arms to keep her balance. She fixed Zinnia with a look.
“No one cares what you wish, my dear,” she said. “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? Here you are, hidden away like unflattering photographs in some forgotten drawer, locked up for doing the most natural thing in the world.”
“Thanks for your opinion,” Rose said. “Your book’s broken, by the way.”
Miss Parcae placed one hand on Holly’s wet hair. Holly ducked out from under her touch.
“This one has the right idea,” Miss Parcae said. “There’s power in silence.”
Rose pulled her T‑shirt on and stomped past Miss Parcae to grab her underwear. Fern took that as a cue to pull her duster over her head fast, not wanting to take her eyes off Miss Parcae’s dogs.
“We tried to do other spells, but we couldn’t understand the book,” Fern said.
'Witchcraft for Wayward Girls' by Grady Hendrix
“Then perhaps you’re not ready to read it yet,” Miss Parcae said. “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. That’s what the book teaches.”
“And how to wash away your freckles, and get straighter hair,” Zinnia said.
“It all depends on how deep you want to go,” Miss Parcae told her. “You can change the color of your eyes, or you can stop the world in its tracks. The question is, how much are you willing to pay?”
“Here it comes,” Rose said. “It’s always something with your generation. You owe this, you have to pay that. Y’all have banks instead of brains and calculators for eyes.”
“I’m not sure what generation you think I am,” Miss Parcae said. “But believe me when I tell you that you’ve severely miscalculated.”
“What can we do?” Fern asked.
“What’s that, dear?” Miss Parcae asked, all sweetness and light.
“If we pay the price, what can the book teach us to do?” Fern asked.
“That’s up to you,” Miss Parcae said. “But first, you have to understand all those unfamiliar words and phrases. It’s very frustrating, I’m sure. I can help. For a price.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Rose said. “Never trust anyone over thirty, Fern. They’ve put a price tag on the world.”
“How much?” Fern asked.
“Oh, not much,” Miss Parcae said. “Just eternal loyalty and complete obedience.”
A gust of wind rippled the surface of the river, and something jumped and splashed far away in the dark.
“There’s the pitch,” Rose said. “Come on, y’all. I know a pusher when I hear one. She’ll have us all in robes passing out pamphlets in airports.”
Fern looked at Zinnia.
“She’s crazy,” Zinnia said. “And if she’s not, that’s worse. Let’s go.”
Fern didn’t want to go, but she had to stick with them. She turned to Miss Parcae.
“I’m sorry we used your book,” she said. “I’ll give it back to you the next time you come.”
She started after Rose and Zinnia. Miss Parcae waited until they were struggling up the riverbank before she said, “Don’t think you can turn your backs on me.”
The two great black dogs stood and trotted toward them, low growls rumbling so deep inside their chests Fern felt it in her bones. She froze. Zinnia froze. Holly froze. The dogs stopped growling but they stood facing the girls, bodies taut, flanks quivering.
“My goodness,” Miss Parcae said from behind them. “You’re acting like I’m the devil. Girls, I want what’s best for you. I want to give you the power you need to solve your problems. I want you to be free.”
Fern wanted to turn and look at Miss Parcae, but she knew that the second she moved the dogs would be on her, jaws clamped around her throat, claws tearing open her stomach.
But Rose turned right around to face Miss Parcae.
“Heel your mutts,” she said.
“You saw what the book can do,” Miss Parcae said, coming into Fern’s field of vision. “And it can do so much more. You simply have to pledge obedience to me and turn your backs on the world of men. Is that really so much to ask?”
She stood in front of Fern and waited politely, face as placid as the moon.
“The first one’s always free,” Rose said. “That’s how they hook you, Fern. Come on.”
“I’m sorry,” Fern said through her tight throat.
“Pishposh,” Miss Parcae said. “All this fuss!”
“Nobody’s interested in your pitch, grandma,” Rose said.
Rose started walking again. She passed between the dogs, who growled low, in stereo. Fern knew they needed to stick together. She knew the dogs would sense the slightest hesitation. So she made her stiff legs move, following Rose. Behind her, she heard Zinnia coming through the grass. Fern passed the dogs, barely contained violence vibrating from their bodies.
“No!” a girl shouted from behind them.
Fern turned at the unfamiliar sound and saw Holly, standing beside Miss Parcae, forehead wrinkled, mouth frowning, fists at her sides.
“You can’t go,” Holly said, and her voice was higher and clearer than Fern had imagined. “You have to help me. I’m having God’s baby.”
Audio excerpted with permission of Penguin Random House Audio from WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS by Grady Hendrix, read by Leslie Howard, Hillary Huber and Sara Morsey. © Grady Hendrix ℗ 2024 Penguin Random House, LLC.
Cover and excerpt from WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS by Grady Hendrix. Text copyright (c) 2025 by Grady Hendrix. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, by Grady Hendrix will be released on January 14, 2025. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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