"She has that look on her face. That "I'm going to solve this with food or fury" face."
This book is a little jewel, 15 short stories about women and witchcraft. In the past or the present, here or there, it explores different kinds of witchcraft, different cultures, and characters. I loved it all. All the 15 stories. Of course, some more than others. But overall, each of them has wisdom and beauty in it!
Each main character lives a struggle, but also has magic in their life. They learn and grow through the stories and so do we.
I recommend this book to all women, witches or not, who wants to dive into their power within!

Full review on the blog!

All about the W's: Witches and Women

If you enjoy stories revolving around strong, weak, and inspired women, you will likely take to this series of short stories. If you enjoy a little magic and magical realism, you will enjoy the short stories.
If you enjoy stories that include a bit of romance for the straight and gay crowd, you will absolutely dig this book. I think this story has a little bit of everything for women readers with a little magic in them.

With so many short stories involved, I find it can be a bit difficult to follow the characters and their various names and story lines. But I was pleasantly surprised to experience this issue very little through out the book. In addition, I really enjoyed most of the stories presented. It started a bit slow in my opinion, the middle and the end, containing some of the best stories. But there wasn't a story that I didn't enjoy. There was a little of something for each woman out there. And many of the struggles were incredibly relatable. Each and every author did quite well in their story creation.

I waited a while to be approved by NetGalley to review this book and it was well worth the wait.

Title: Toil & Trouble 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft
Author: Tess Sharpe
My Rating: 2 Stars

What it's about: As the title implies, 15 Young Adult short stories featuring women and witchcraft.

What I liked: I liked the witchcraft and the diversity throughout these stories. I love the cover art.

What I disliked: Pretty much all of these stories bored me to tears. I just couldn’t get into them and on the rare occasion that I was interested in one of them, it ended way too soon, as short stories often do.

Overview: I was so pumped about this book, it was everything I’m interested in, but it just fell very flat for me. In the end I’m only giving it a 2 star rating, because while I finished it, it was a struggle. I had to keep pushing myself to continue.

I want to begin by mentioning I often avoid anthologies. I do so simply because the different authors can have such different styles and the stories do not always flow well. I did see some of that here. I had a difficult time transitioning from certain stories at times. I also dislike anthologies because I am always so unsure of how I should rate them. Do I take the time to sit and take notes on each story and review each individually? Normally, yes I would if I was intending on reviewing it. This time though, I decided against it. I have too much going on and it was just too inconvenient to do. That being said, my rating and review are based on the book as a whole. And in doing so, this will not be a lengthy review.


I don't have too much to say about the cover here. I enjoy how this cover depicts so many images associated with witches. The cover is colorful, but not overpoweringly so. It did catch my eye, so mission accomplished there!


Now for the stories...I always mention that I love seeing diversity, well this book is full of it. We encounter gay witches, witches that are people of color, and even young witches. The women shown here did not follow society's norms. They are not married, educated, stay at home moms. They are strong and independent women. I simply cannot express how happy I am with the immense amount of diversity in here. So many people need representation in literature and are finally getting it.


As I anticipated, there were some I really enjoyed and some that were meh...or I disliked. I mean, we can't all win, right? I wish I had taken notes while reading so that I was able to give more detail about what I did and did not like, but with so much going on in life right now, I was unable to. I have to read where I can...not always able to take down notes. I did love some of these stories. I flew through them, wanting more. Some could even be expanded on, making a second short story or an entire novel. Others I longed to be over, slowly making my way through the pages and hoping to stay awake.


With that in mind...this book does have a little something for everyone! I admit there were a few I wanted to skim past, but I have such a hard time doing it. I feel like I need to give each book a real chance. Personally, there were not enough stories I enjoyed for me to purchase this upon its release in August.

A collection of short stories with only two things tying them all together: female protagonists and magic (specifically as witches). From there, each story is wildly different from the setting, the type of magic, the unfolding of the story. Some are simply about finding yourself and being true to yourself while others do focus more on the aspect of magic and what it means for that particular world. This is a very inclusive set of stories, too, with both gender and sexual fluidity, heroines from different races and backgrounds, and societies that do not always look like our own. If you are looking for magic and read that is a fresh breath of air from the typical, cliche stories normally read, I highly, highly recommend this collection.

First of all, let me thank Netgalley and Harlequin Teen for the chance to read and review this book: Toil and Trouble, pre-release. As always, these thoughts are my own. This review is spoiler-free and no main plot points are revealed.

I give this story 3 stars.

Please note that this anthology contains stories by authors Tess Sharpe, Jessica Spotswood, Brandy Colbert, Zoraida Cordova, Andrea Cremer, Kate Hart, Emery Lord, Elizabeth May, Anna-Marie McLemore, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Lindsay Smith, Nova Ren Suma, Robin Talley, Shveta Thakrar, and Brenna Yovanoff.

Synopsis: 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.

Anthologies
So I write short stories even though I used to dislike them. While reading these, that same feeling of dislike swept over me and I buckled down to try to decipher why exactly I didn't love some of these.

And I figured it out.

I'm unfamiliar with most of these authors but I do know they write long-form novels. Maybe some of them dabble in short stories, or maybe they all are prolific short story writers and I just do it wrong. But I realized while reading these that several of these stories are just snippets of a story. There's a definite beginning, but there's no resolution. It's not the snippet at the end of the story where your questions get answered. It's just a picture in the middle, and I don't like that. I don't like not getting the answer to the singular question that is the story. Now, not all of the stories were this way-- I'd say less than half were unfinished to my tastes.

Lessons Learned
What I took away from these stories, the ones I liked and the ones I didn't were two things:

Witches "don't need no man"-- because they are gay/lesbian
Witches are good
Now, neither of these things were surprising to me and mostly in the stories they come off as cute or normal but it's important you know that heading in. While I have a moral argument against the gay lifestyle, I didn't feel like these stories shoved it down my throat. My favorite of the stories was Starsong by Tehlor Kay Meijia, and it was definitely queer. It was also darling.

I LOVED how this story had so much diverse ethnicity, but it wasn't ALL Latinx or black. There were some white girls, too. And I liked that it didn't seem to matter-- it all felt natural.

All told, there were 15 stories in this anthology and this review on Goodreads goes through a bit of each of them. (Note: I don't necessarily agree with the review, just that the writer does mention each story individually.)

Trigger Warnings for Toil and Trouble:
There are some difficult things talked about in this book, not limited to: death, bullying, rape, assault, and the occult.

It was difficult for me to rate this story since it was an anthology, and there were some stories I liked and some I did not. Honestly, I'm just going to leave it at three stars.

This collection was good. I could break down my opinions on each story in this anthology, as I took notes on my thoughts throughout, but quite frankly, I don't have much to say about a decent number of them. So instead of boring you with my lack of thoughts on some stories, I'll just sum up my opinion of the collection as a whole.

Some stories in here were absolutely incredible and I would love to have been able to read more. While some on the other hand, I really never connected with and just kept reading for the sake of moving to the next story. I ended up putting this down for now and didn't get to the last few stories just yet, since about 3/4, a lot just blended together and it felt more like a chore. I'm sure I'll go back and read the last ones, as I see other reviews praising the ending of this anthology; however, I feel I'll get more out of them if I give it a break before going back.

On the plus side, this book nails it for diversity. There are so many #ownvoices writers in here, and different stories cover so many different lives. Plus yes I was super excited for the f/f witches in this anthology, and they didn't disappoint.

Stand-out stories: The Heart in Her Hands, The Truth About Queenie, The Legend of Stone Mary, The One Who Stayed, and The Daughters of Baba Yaga.

A great selection of stories that seamlessly blend into a cohesive collection of tales of magic. The magical elements never felt out of place or unbelievable. I enjoyed that not all the stories were driven by romance and those stories that were about romance were diverse in their love. A great collection about the strength of women.

Disclaimer: I was given an ARC of Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. Possible spoilers ahead!

I don't think I've ever voluntarily read a collection of short stories in book form. I'm greedy; I've always wanted more than a short story format can offer. Slower pacing, more about the characters, and a deep dive into the world around them. Becoming immersed in a fictional world is my happy place.

So, why did I feel such an intense need to request an ARC of Toil & Trouble? The cover caught my eye at first, for sure. As soon as I saw Witchcraft in the title... I don't think I've ever clicked on an ARC so fast! Then I read the description, saw it included LGBTQ+ characters, and that was it. I was hooked.

Out of all fifteen short stories, there were maybe two that I could've done without, but the other thirteen made the whole collection worth the read. The final story in the collection was hands down my favourite. It was incredible, beautiful, and empowering. I'm sure I'll be rereading Toil & Trouble in the future just because of that story.

All in all, I absolutely loved Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft and I cannot recommend enough that you pick it up once it releases. I mean, LGBTQ+ witches, you guys. What more do I have to say to convince you to mark your calendars for August 28th?!

What's not to love about an anthology of YA feminist witch short stories? TOIL & TROUBLE: 15 TALES OF WOMEN & WITCHCRAFT has a tale (or two, or three, or fifteen) for every reader. From historical witches to modern witch covens to young witches just coming into power, there were a lot of great reads here. I definitely had a couple of favorites, but I wouldn't want to unduly influence any readers by naming names (though if you know anything about me, you might be able to guess which ones--sister stories anyone?). I was glad take my time to savor each story.

To say this book is up my alley would be an understatement. Part of my Twitter handle includes "Sarcastic Witch." So, needless to say, when I saw this book, I clicked the "request" VERY quickly. Feminist stories, women, and witchcraft? Where do I sign? I could not be more in the target audience.

And I loved it!! This book felt like it was made for me. I haven't read an anthology of stories probably since college (it's been almost a year since I graduated). I have nothing against them. Who doesn't like a bunch of stories for the price of one? I just tend to gravitate toward novels. But I am so glad I found this one. The cover is gorgeous and fun and could not be more perfect to draw in someone like me. But that's enough of my rhapsodizing, let's get to the review!

Synopsis (from 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.

Since this is an anthology, I thought I'd give a short synopsis of each story as the Goodreads description does not really do it justice. Each story is different from the others, so you'll never feel like you're reading the same story over and over again. Here are the basic plots of each story:

Starsong by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Instagram star, Luna Mendoza, is witch-y and does magic. She's has had a tough time with partying but is now recovering. She has a mom who worries about her a lot but mainly worries Luna is going to turn into her aunt. Luna doesn't like to leave her house after what happened with her drinking. But then she starts interacting with another girl on Instagram, They end up liking each other, and make a plan to meet. (This story is cute as hell.)

Afterbirth by Andrea Cremer
A midwife and her apprentice during the 1600s attend the birth of a "creature," with the mother sadly dying soon after. The midwife is jailed when she can't "properly" explain the "creature," and eventually is put to death. But she passes on all her secrets to her apprentice.

The Heart in Her Hands by Tess Sharpe
A soulmate story. Bettina is part of a coven but she has fought against the rules most of her life (to the disappointment of her mother). She ends up meeting her soulmate unexpectedly but she doesn't want him. She'is in love with her best friend, Augusta (Auggie) and they fight to be together. (Such a refreshing take on the soulmate trope.)

Death in the Sawtooths by Lindsay Smith
Mattie is an outcast to most of her witch community. Her patron is Lady Xosia, Lady of Slumber and because of that, she works at Fred's Funeral Home to prepare the bodies of the dead and people don't necessarily understand that. She makes sure the souls go to where they're supposed to so no one can use or twist them into something else. During the story, we see the popular girl from school and one that pulled multiple pranks on Mattie, Savannah, Mistress of Glamours, comes to the funeral home to ask for her help. Kids are dying at the school and they don't know why.  Another student (a boy...surprise, surprise) is using the souls for wicked purposes. Mattie and Savannah work together to defeat him.

The Truth About Queenie by Brandy Colbert
Queenie has a crush on her best friend, Webb. But when she finds out he has a girlfriend now (Blythe), she feels heartbroken. But she is also scared of herself. Queenie performed a spell when she was younger and the girl she did it against died. So when Webb's girlfriend falls ill, she thinks it's her fault. She must find a way to cure her with her magic.

The Moonapple Menagerie by Shverta Thakrar
A group of shape-shifting friends (they can turn into animals and humans) are in a coven together. They are working to put on a play, but, once her friends leave her for the day, Shalini cannot figure out a way to write the ending of the play, so she decided to cast a spell to summon the churel. The churel is a creature that grants wishes for a price. But what the churel wants might just pull the friends apart.

The Legend of Stone Mary by Robin Talley
There is a legend of Mary throughout the town. She never bothered anyone but they still turned against her and let her freeze out in the cold. A statue of her is now in the park to memorialize her. But Wendy (one of Mary's descendants) has never seen the statue. Her mother told her to stay away from it, but one night, after she's done working with a couple of her co-workers on Halloween, they decide to go see Mary (and Wendy has a crush on Karen and she is going too) but when Wendy gets close to the statue of Mary, she starts to feel pulled to her. She almost becomes possessed. You'll have to see what happens when Wendy makes it to the statue of her ancestor. 

The One Who Stayed by Nova Ren Suma  (Trigger warning for sexual assault/rape)
This story is about a coven in the woods. It is made up of all the girls who have been hurt by boys and men on the bend of Old Fork Road. But they might have another girl joining their group very soon...

Divine are the Stars by Zoraida Cordova
Marimar and Chuy's family returns to their family home to find their grandmother, Rosa Divina. At first, they have a hard time getting inside the house because it is covered in leaves and vines but when they do. they see that Rosa Divina has turned into a tree and she is the reason the house is encased in branches. Rosa Divina is about to die. As she passes away, she gives everything to Marimar but leaves a flower on each person who cared for her.

Daughters of Baba Yaga by Brenna Yovanoff
This story is about Stony, her life growing up, and her culture. She meets a girl named Harmony and through her, Stony figures out ways to get back at the bullies in her school. (There is a pig involved.)

The Well Witch by Kate Hart
Elsa lives in the middle of nowhere in the desert. But one day, three men come upon her house. At first, they're fine. They just need to rest. But then their horses die and they end up working for Elsa until they can find a way home. Eventually, Elsa falls for one of the men, Zeb, but he has to leave to find provisions for everyone and the other two men are not as nice. They quickly take over Elsa's house and lock her in her room. But she figures a way out and makes them regret ever messing with her. (So good!)

Beware of Girls with Crooked Mouths by Jessica Spotswood
Jo lives with her sisters, Georgiana and Eleanor. They are known as the Campbell Witches. Jo gets a vision where she is coming down the stairs of the Winchester house as an old woman to meet her grandchildren, meaning she ends up marrying a Winchester. But the only Winchester available is Nathaniel and he is Georgiana's boyfriend.

There is a prophecy that only one Campbell sister survives to old age and Jo thinks if she makes this vision come true, her sisters will hate her so much that they will leave and they will all survive until they are old. While that may be true, she doesn't consider what life would be like alone and with her sisters hating her.

Love Spell by Anne-Marie McLemore
A young woman lives with her aunt and they help people forget their heartbreak with their potions and tonics. She falls for a boy who gives the communion at the church she goes to sometimes. But once he sees her house and her family, he doesn't seem to want to stick around. He loves her but knows his family wouldn't accept him being with her. One day, when she is alone at the house, he shows up asking for a favor. He is so heartbroken from not being able to be with her that he wants her to do the love spell on him. But something completely unexpected happens when she starts to do the spell. (Really cool story!)

The Gherin Girls by Emery Lord
Three sisters, Nova, Rosie, and Willa, meet together in their childhood home for the weekend. Each sister has her specialty. Nova is the cooking witch. Rosie is the plant witch. Willa is the feeling witch. Rosie and Willa go to the store to get some food for dinner and see Rosie's abusive ex-boyfriend there. Once they get back home, Nova and Willa worry about Rosie because when she finally left him, she was a bit of a mess. We see all the sister's points of view at some point during the story (which I love!). Once Nova makes dinner, we see them take care of each other and bond. We also get to see how Nova and Willa deal with their respective relationships. (My favorite of all the stories!)

Why They Watch Us Burn by Elizabeth May
A woman (Faye) accuses a man of touching/assaulting her. In the society in the story, women who accuse a man are sent away to the woods. They make them cut down the trees that they will use to burn them with. While she is all alone when she first gets there, Faye ultimately meets other girls who are there for the same reason as her and they use their will and their magic (they figured they might as well be what they are being accused of) to grow flowers around their little hut, despite it being winter. They also give each other names because they are not allowed to use their own names. Faye ends up falling in love with a girl named Blue (Faye is known as Obsidian.) When Faye ends up in the solitary hut, the girls sneak out and bring her food and talk to her to keep her sane. The girls will not let their captors win, no matter what the cost.

I thoroughly enjoyed every story in this anthology. Each one pulled me into its world and fully immersed me in the characters and what they were going through. I can't wait for more people to read these stories. I know so many of my friends will enjoy this book. I am giving Toil & Trouble 4 out of 5 stars. If this book sounds like something you'd like, please pick it up when it comes out.

Toil & Trouble comes out August 28, 2018.

Thank you, NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

This is a great compilation of short stories - some so good I wish that they were full length. That said, there were some stories that I skipped entirely and that didn't flow with the order of the title. I did enjoy the different perspectives and the inclusion of LGTBQ voices.

Every short story in this collection is so fantastic that you won't want to put it down for a second. Stories about witches, magic, and women of all kinds, each author writes a highly original tale. Recommended for grades 8 and up.

I loved this collection of short stories. While some will stay with me more than others, there is a consistent high-level of quality across the anthology. Particular favorites include Jessica Spotwood's "Beware of Girl's with Crooked Mouths" and Tehlor Key Mejia's "Starsong." Perfect for fans of "Meet Cute" and other YA anthologies.

Oh My Word!! 15 stories all about witches?? Yes please!! I was excited to delve into this collection of stories all with witches as the main characters and I was not disappointed. The stories were varied, the writing great, the characters were amazing. I couldn’t wait to continue reading when I was doing mundane things like cooking and cleaning.
If you’re a fan of the supernatural, of witches, of good writing, snag this up at your earliest convenience, brew up your favorite beverage, magic in your favorite snack, and set yourself in a quiet corner to indulge in this book today.

A fantastic collection of stories from a vast array of voices. I really enjoyed the different perspectives in Toil and Trouble. As with other anthologies, I wish there were nonbinary voices. To my knowledge, there weren't any trans female voices, either. The description states, "witchy heroines who are diverse in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era." Where are the gender-diverse witches? This is the future we need to think about for the teens who are seeking more gender representation.

I liked some of these stories, but found myself skimming too many of them to finish.

This is a marvelous and extremely varied anthology from some of today's best YA authors. The theme of witches unites the stories, but each author takes an extremely unique approach to the prompt. The stories are diverse not only in writing style, but also in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era. I loved the majority of the stories, which is very rare when I am reading an anthology.

Starsong, Love Spell, and The Well Witch stood out to me as my favorites. The characters created in all the 15 stories were worth knowing. They feel like your sisters, your mothers, your friends, yourself. This is a book that will speak to all of the witches (and some warlocks too)

I love witches, so I was really excited for this book! Like all anthologies, there were some stories I loved and some I didn't. Other than a couple of outliers, the stories were all well written and unique in their own way. Witchcraft is addressed throughout the ages from a modern witch dealing with trolls online, to a Quaker witch, to a woman in a dystopian future similar to a Handmaid's Tale. The diversity of the characters was amazing! Nearly every story featured someone who was trans, lesbian, non-binary, Latina, Indian, SO MUCH DIVERSITY! I loved it and it is exactly what YA needs. Strong women of color who aren't straight. I will definitely be buying this book for my library and recommending it to teens. The only reason I gave it 4/5 stars is because a couple of the stories were just not interesting and were forgettable.