Waiting on Wednesdays spotlights highly anticipated upcoming releases, and was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Since Jill is no longer hosting, I’m now joining up with Can’t Wait Wednesday at Wishful Endings. Check it out, and leave a link to your “can’t wait” book of the week!
This week for Waiting on Wednesday, I’m doing something I haven’t done before – I’m highlighting an anthology! Anthologies aren’t usually my go-to reading material because if I really enjoy a story, I want to live in it for so much longer than a short story. However, there are plenty of reasons to look forward to this exceptional young adult collection…
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 28, 2018
Summary (via 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.
Why I’m Waiting:
Like many other women, I really enjoy stories about witches. Whether it’s Hermione Granger or the Sanderson Sisters, I’m all about magical and mystical characters. From those just discovering their powers to those who wield power like a sword, these women are intriguing, complex, and they reject the ordinary. I can remember reading and rereading Roald Dahl’s The Witches as a child, and instead of rooting for the main character as he took on an entire gathering of witches, I just wanted to figure out how I too could become a witch and turn boys into mice.
Witches tend to be very strong, female characters, and an entire collection of diverse stories that delve into their myth and legend sounds right up my alley. Luckily, I was just granted an ARC copy from the publisher, so if you’re looking forward to this one as much as I am, go ahead and subscribe to Among the Authors (at the top of this page on the right) so that you’ll be updated when I post my review a little closer to publication time. I can’t wait to get started reading it!
