Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft - Tess Sharp, Jessica Spotswood

Visual Description: Purple cover with "Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft' in large white semi-cursive script. Framing the cover are simple illustrations colored in variations of gold, orange, and white - cats, swirling ivy, poison, skulls, moon, cauldrons, cawing crows, open palm, and a spider web.

Publishing: August 28th, 2018. Harlequin Teen.

Pg Count: 405 pgs, Hardcover

Find more info: Goodreads

"A young adult fiction anthology of 15 stories featuring contemporary, historical, and futuristic stories featuring witchy heroines who are diverse in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era. Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Glinda the Good Witch. Elphaba the Wicked Witch. Willow. Sabrina. Gemma Doyle. The Mayfair Witches. Ursula the Sea Witch. Morgan le Fey. The three weird sisters from Macbeth. History tells us women accused of witchcraft were often outsiders: educated, independent, unmarried, unwilling to fall in line with traditional societal expectations. Bold. Powerful. Rebellious. A bruja’s traditional love spell has unexpected results. A witch’s healing hands begin to take life instead of giving it when she ignores her attraction to a fellow witch. In a terrifying future, women are captured by a cabal of men crying witchcraft and the one true witch among them must fight to free them all. In a desolate past, three orphaned sisters prophesize for a murderous king. Somewhere in the present, a teen girl just wants to kiss a boy without causing a hurricane. From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely--has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored." - Nabbed from Goodreads

'Tis the season for witches and things that go bump in the night. Actually - in my firm opinion - there is no such thing as a 'season for witches' because witches are timeless and deserve love every season of the year. If not because they are nature-based and obviously WAY more in tune with the seasons than we are - then because we are in desperate need of magick year around. That being said..there is something obvious about the cooling, coming Autumn time that inspires a person to curl up with a witchy book or two. "Toil and Trouble' was the first book I picked up this year when I started getting that witchy vibe coming on. I've been looking forward to it forever - I'm a huge fan of Jessica Spotswood's anthology editing work. She's brought me not one but TWO Tyranny of Petticoats books and now this...Toil and Trouble. Fifteen tales of women and witchcraft.

Absolutely and utterly my cup of mystic tea.

Toil & Trouble is everything that it promises to be. It spans time, the world, worlds (plural)...etc. Each one stands on their own and it's a terrible choice to figure out which ones deserve specific mention. It's one of the best anthologies in YA, if not THE best ever. I honestly haven't read much anthologies outside of YA so I can't say it's top dog outside of the genre BUT...I can suggest it to anyone whose interests are outside of the Young Adult genre.

There's layers upon layers of feelings and meanings that the anthology encompasses as a whole. And individually the stories will sing to you in different ways. Songs that sooth, that enrage, that heal, that inspire, that devastate, that make you burn as surely as our predecessors burned at the stake for being.

I am suggesting Toil & Trouble to basically everyone, ANYONE, who is remotely interested.

Until next time,

Jess