- Genre: Horror, Thriller
- Published by: Berkley
- Publish date: January 14, 2025
- Number of pages: 496 pages
- Author’s website: http://www.gradyhendrix.com/
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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.
Rating: 4/5
Mini Review:
Full review:
I felt like this book took me forever to read and for a book that I ended up ultimately really liking, I almost DNF’d it a couple times. I’m so glad I kept with it. The reasons I did was I’ve read and enjoyed all Grady Hendrix’s books I’ve read previously and I was invested in seeing how the main character, Fern, ends up.
The ending got me in my feels. This book has a similar vibe to The Reformatory by Tananarive Due in that it is horror on its surface but it’s also historical fiction. This history part is of a pre-Roe v. Wade America in Florida. There are strong side characters— from the other “flower” “wayward” girls who become friends and a coven with Fern, to the sisters who work at the house and become allies to the girls, the cruel people who run the home, and the witches that are residing in the wilderness near the house.
This book is a complex tale about the various circumstances that would lead to a pregnancy and the difficult and nuanced decisions that a mother makes whether that is abortion, adoption, or raising their child. It’s about young girls and women reclaiming control of their lives. There was something in the last third of the book that felt like there was so much care in how these girls were written.
I think fans of Hendrix will be surprised at how different this is from his previous works but will also recognize that he has always written outside the box. For the horror enthusiasts, the horrors are more internal and more subtle that fills you with dread, but there are still classic scenes of body horror (especially of pregnancy and birth) and then there is some really searing imagery of the witchcraft.
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts? I’d love to know!
I received an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book from Netgalley and Berkley. This has not impacted my rating and this review is voluntary.
Musings by Michelle 