My feedback is so late on this one but it took me two Halloweens to finally read all of the stories! Like most short story compilations, not every story was a winner for me but there are some great ones in here, chilling and perfect for a cozy night when you want a little scare. I am sorry this book has not gotten more attention--it deserves it! I really enjoyed Jezebels and Harlots, Granny Witch, Blackout, Crisscross Girls, and Allegations of Alchemy.

📖My Thoughts📖

This is the absolute perfect spooky fall book! This is a book full of short stories, all entailing witchcraft and magic of some sort. There are some that are lighter than others, some that include some rather gory details and scenes, and some that leave you grinning. This anthology includes 24 short tales by 24 different authors, each bringing their own flair to the mix. It was a very easy and quick read, as well as very entertaining and enjoyable. There are a few parts that may make some individuals a little squeamish. A mixture of horror and sci-fi, there are some areas that may be triggering to some individuals, so if you have any triggers, proceed with caution. This is the perfect book for the upcoming fall season, so go grab yourself a copy and snuggle up with a hot cup of joe!
Thank you Netgalley, J.D. Horn and Curious Blue Press for the opportunity to read and review this captivating book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

this was a great collection of stories, I really enjoyed going through this collection as each story was really well done.

This was such a good read for spooky season! I enjoyed a lot of the stories, and the world building/writing of most of the stories. The artwork stories were so so cute, it was probably my favorite part of the whole book! It isn't higher than a 3 star read for me because towards the end of the book a lot of the stories followed the same pace and arc, and felt almost the same. So that was unfortunate, I would have liked to see more variety in the type of stories/characters that were written about!

This book was a fun read. I needed a little lighter fare and this one hit the spot. Not that the stories are all lighthearted, they're not. There's darkness and murder and grief woven into these tales of magic, but there's also love and humor and the beauty of women's friendship.

Coming from a South-adjacent area myself (no one seems to know exactly what part of the country Oklahoma belongs to), there was such wonderful familiarity to these stories for me. From the sweltering heat to the drought-plagued crops, the cicada song and the drawing voices, these stories bring alive a setting that speaks of home to me.

These are not horror stories, the witches contained herein are good, as the title suggests. Powerful, yes, sometimes angry, justifiably vindictive, but ultimately good.

This book is a little slice of Southern goodness mixed with folklore and imagination to make a truly enjoyable collection.

I found this to be a great read. Never a boring moment. Lots inside the pages of this book to keep any avid reader intrigued. Thank you.

I loved that this was a different take on witches - not the post-medieval, European witch we usually see, but an American South version. That said, although I liked that aspect, I did find many of the stories quite disappointing as stories. At first it seemed there was a wide variety of approaches, but after a few stories they started to feel samey. A lot of them introduced an idea, and then... just ended. I read a lot of short fiction and am quite picky about it, and this just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Good Southern Witches, edited by J.D. Horn, is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of 24 tales of witches—good, bad, female, non-binary, old, young, gay, and straight. There are stories here for every fan of witch lore: you have granny witches providing tonics for wealthy clients, generations of witches welcoming their heir into her powers, spiteful witches to claiming lives to free her own, Earth witches protecting the environment when trees are to be destroyed, and a couple of cozy witches keep a balance between our world and the unknown.

I really enjoyed this anthology, not every story was my cup of tea, but that is to be expected in any collection of short stories. This was my first time reading any release by Curious Blue Press, now I will be looking forward to anything and everything they release. I loved that the authors selected for this anthology were not names that I have seen over and over in other publications. I now have new writers to check out. I really appreciated the LGBTQIA representation in this collection, not a lot of presses will make that a priority.

4/5 Stars
Thank you to #NetGalley and #CuriousBluePress for providing me with an eARC for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

An absolute love letter to witches, this book reimagines witches in the American south, with beautiful and powerful interpretation. For anyone who's ever wondered if they too, might be a witch.

Thank you to NetGalley and Curious Blue Press for advance access to this title!

I generally love fiction about witches. While I like some of the stories in this anthology, I didn't really like most of them. I found myself unable to concentrate on them.

I received a free ARC and I am leaving my honest review.

Full review to be posted soonish.

I would like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed about half of these stories, but found that a good amount of them were just not for me. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the stories as written, but I'm learning that I don't enjoy short story collections as much as I think I do.

Thanks to Netgalley and Curious Blue Press for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Good Southern Witches stood out to me because I'm a Southern horror/witchy story lover myself. The intro immediately pulled me in, and the stories themselves kept me hooked onto each page.

There are lots of different types of witches in this book, so there's truly a story for everyone. Some stories really highlighted the "southern" aspect, while others simply mentioned the town or location. My favorite part about this is the "no frills" theme. These are stories about good old fashioned magic, and as a frequent high fantasy reader, it was a nice change of pace.

While every story may not hit its mark for every reader, which I feel is true for most anthologies, Good Southern Witches should find a home on every southern witch's bookshelf.

A fascinating collection of short stories, well written and interesting.
Great characters that reflects a traditional ideas of witchcraft and powerful women.
I liked it and it's recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this arc, all opinions are mine

Another anthology read for the girl who isn’t keen on short stories. Go figure! These short stories are full of my favorite kind of character: southern women who hold their own in some way. Old southern Belle witches, young girl witches, redneck backwoods witches, and the best woman of all - Mother Nature. The stories are incredibly diverse even with the common theme of “southern” persons. Some of the stories fell flat, but overall it was a great grouping of stories, some of which are truly excellent pieces of supernatural literature. If you like witches, and Southern gothic (and even some Southern preppy thrown in for good measure!), pick up this anthology and drink some tea spiked with bourbon to get lost in some witchcraft.

I’m grateful to the author, publisher, and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this as an ARC! Thank you again!

3.5/5 rounded up to 4.
Thanks to Netgalley and Curious Blue Press for a copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was excited to see a short story collection about southern witches. I expected these stories to evoke atmosphere distinctly Southern (even better if distinctly one particular place in the South), and I expected them to have witchy themes or plots.

Concept
All the stories had good concepts. I didn't dislike the central idea of any of them. They could all be made into great stories. The concepts of each were unique enough that the stories were individual and never felt repeated within the collection. I liked that there was such a wide range of witchy aspects, many of which I'd never encountered and were fun/interesting to read.

Atmosphere. This is going to be long. Sorry.

Some stories did better than others at evoking atmosphere. Baby did a great job of producing a witchy atmosphere, and it made it rural. I'm from the area the story's set it, and though I wasn't convinced it was the same area, Baby still stuck out as one of the better atmosphere-evokers.

Most of the stories didn't strike me as having anything Southern about them, except an odd mention of an Southern state name or town. General rural America fits better as a setting description with the majority of these stories. It felt like some authors threw in stererotypical dialect or a shout-out to a southern town just to fit their stories into this collection. I can be picky about this point, but it gets old when authors don't understand a setting that you do and try to sell you a place they've seen on TV. Other people might read these stories and not notice or not care. Honestly, if this was just renamed "American Witches" and the authors allowed to edit the locations of their stories, I'd shut the heck up.

But if Southern is in the title, I'm expecting something of the South to emerge true and be a big part of the story: its history, the various subcultures, something. For example, when Grady Hendrix titled a book "The Southern...," he nailed the setting as not only distinctly Southern but also as distinctly Charleston, and the setting is almost its own character vital to the story. Hendrix also doesn't cross the sometimes fine line between characterization of the setting and stereotyping. I think it helps that he knows the setting so well. When I read his other works that had nothing about setting in the name, I had no expectations of the setting going in and left without disappointment.

Execution
While reading the first story in the collection, Baby, I thought the writing phenomenally inviting. I wanted to keep reading and reading. I read the next story, which was also interesting, and then the next, and then somewhere along the way I wanted to stop. The execution of the stories, at least to me, and I don't mean to hurt any feelings here, seemed to be best at the front end of the collection. I don't think the later stories were horrible, but they seemed to lack the polish of the earlier stories. With revision, they could be great, too. Again, all of the stories had great concepts. It just read like some of them weren't ready for publication. I found value in every story, though. I believe every author in this collection capable of perfecting their stories, and I'd read from them all again.

Format/Editing
I wanted to give a shout out to the editor because the kindle edition was one of the best I've had from Netgalley. It didn't have weird formatting issues or lots of errors. I know that Netgalley usually gives proof copies, but it was nice to see that the editor obviously cared about giving reviewers the best reading experience possible. It was also nice to discover some authors early in their writing careers.

What’s great about this book of stories is it’s old fashioned witchcraft. Witchy stories, and none of the modern day nonsense that goes with it. No romance disguised as paranormal. No happily ever after’s. Just good old fashioned earth magic. The old kind. The stories are great to dig into. They move quickly, and their fun in their darkness. You get your fill of the maiden, the mother, and the krone. There is even some male magic and some non-binary characters as well trying to find their way in the magic world. I highly recommend this book to people who like the dark magic stories, coupled with the white magic. There is no good and evil in these stories. It’s just people, with that that entails.

While the mythological figure of the witch has been part of popular culture for centuries, on the big screen or on the page there hasn’t been an all-encompassing anthology of the many incarnations – until now.

J.D Horn’s anthology has 24 stories squeezed into, with pretty much every version of a witch you could find.

We look at changelings, whilst also broaching different subjects including vengeance against abuse men, families of witches, gay teenage romances plus much more.

Some stories really hone in on the towns they are set and also flip the narrative back and forth, with witches sometimes being saviours and other times working for a darker purpose.

Each story is quite short, it makes Good Southern Witches a fast-paced read, my only complaint was that many of the stories had the potential to be fleshed out into a full-length story.

Good Southern Witches is released on 13th April 2021 by Curious Blue Press.

Good Southern Witches is an anthology put together to pay respects to witches in any and all of her forms.

While most of the stories in this anthology missed the mark of what I would consider ‘horror,’ even when painted with the broadest brush, it was still an evocative and entertaining grouping of stories revolving around ‘witches’ in the southern USA.

Much of the time, the magic in these stories was a small element, a little detail here or a bit of foreshadowing there. I enjoyed the subtlety of the magic, that it wasn’t grandiose or over-the-top in most stories. There were exceptions, where magic played a much more central role or manifested itself as a central point of the story, but largely, the characters referred to as ‘witches’ were such in title and renown more than grandiose displays of magic. Another element I enjoyed was that the witches of the stories were almost never the antagonist, but either neutral or benevolent people just trying to live their lives like everyone else.

Some of the stories felt like they may have been building on existing lore, either completely fictitiously, or building off possible urban legends common to the south. In a few stories, it was harder to sink into, feeling like no matter how much explanation the story provides I’m never fully ‘in the loop.’ Though, I’m not sure if this was a failing of where I am, or a failing in the storytelling not being able to pull me in or provide enough information to fully transport me into the world.

And so many of the worlds were so rich and interesting. One of my favorite stories, “The Witch and the Waif” by Rie Sheridan Rose, lets you know early on it’s a take on Baba Yaga, and it was so much fun to read I was upset when it ended! Some of my other notable favorites include “Putting Down Roots” by Keily Blair and “Rise of the Mother Bear” by Indigo Giordana-Altú.

All in all, this collection was full of masterfully written stories. Reading it was an absolute delight. The anthology is out mid-April, and it’s definitely worth picking up.

I was provided an advanced copy of this anthology by NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Here are some of the standout stories by ladies of horror fiction:

Crisscross Girls, by Ruthann Jagge – Birdie Montrose is a spirited young woman with the mark of the witch… something that could get her killed in her small Texas hometown. Crisscross Girls is not only well-written, but it is thought-provoking and empowering.

Rise of the Mother Bear, by Indigo Giordiana-Altu – Kiara is a single mom doing the best she can to raise her gifted son, Jayden. When Jayden’s birth-father comes back into the picture, everything changes. Rise of the Mother Bear will lift the evil spirits of anyone who has ever been done wrong by a former spouse.

That They Should Come Unto Me, by Lucy Bennett-Gray – River and Rain are mere tots when they’re abandoned by their mother. When they’re taken in by a kindly stranger, they realize freedom was their destiny all along. This story reminded me of the great Twilight Zone episode, ‘It’s a Good Life’ (the one with Billy Mumy as the boy with the ability to create or destroy anything using the power of his mind).

Beating Seventeen, by G. Lloyd Helm – Seventeen Williams is a gambling man who decides to play with the odds by enlisting the help of a local witch. But winning is not guaranteed. Beating Seventeen is a vivid, memorable tale with a twist you won’t see coming.

WomenInHorror.com's Girl-Power Percentage: 80% -- Good Southern Witches is edited and produced by a man, and some of the stories are by male authors. But given that this collection is a love letter to the witch, in all her glorious and fearsome incarnations, its girl-power percentage ranks high.