Review: Toil and Trouble, edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe

I received a digital copy of this anthology via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I love witches – walking stereotypes with black hats, quiet ones that blend in, ones that keep secrets from their families, ones that keep secrets with their families. Witches are women who walk their own paths and believe in their own power. This lovely book is full of witches, and it makes my soul sing to read their stories.

Toil and Trouble is a short story anthology of stories about young witches, especially queer witches and witches of color. There are fifteen wonderful, unique stories, from a girl living through the witch trials of centuries past to girls trying to survive the ones of a possible near future. There are water witches and star witches and blood witches. I love them all.

That’s not to say I loved every story equally – I definitely had some favorites. The Heart in her Hands stole my own heart so thoroughly I had dreams about it two days later. The Gherin Girls made me consider my relationship with my own siblings in a new and yet intimately familiar light. And Why They Watch Us Burn gave voice to feelings and fears that are entirely too real and too current. I have a feeling I’ll come back to this book again, in a different frame of mind and with different needs, and find resonance with different stories each time.

This anthology does not pull punches – but I don’t think stories about young women finding their power necessarily should. Still, I think it would benefit from some content warnings. In particular, sexual assault, domestic violence, and general gore features in several stories. The sexual assault and domestic violence are treated respectfully, but readers with sensitivities to those topics should be cautious.

This collection has something for everyone – at least, everyone who loves girls finding their own power and using it. As the dust jacket says:

This collection reveals a universal truth: there’s nothing more powerful than a teenage girl who believes in herself.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars