History is filled with stories of women accused of witchcraft, of fearsome girls with arcane knowledge. Toil & Trouble features fifteen stories of girls embracing their power, reclaiming their destinies and using their magic to create, to curse, to cure-and to kill.
A young witch uses social media to connect with her astrology clients-and with a NASA-loving girl as cute as she is skeptical. A priestess of death investigates a ritualized murder. A bruja who cures lovesickness might need the remedy herself when she falls in love with an altar boy. A theater production is turned upside down by a visiting churel. In Reconstruction-era Texas, a water witch uses her magic to survive the soldiers who have invaded her desert oasis. And in the near future, a group of girls accused of witchcraft must find their collective power in order to destroy their captors.
This collection reveals a universal truth: there's nothing more powerful than a teenage girl who believes in herself.
"The tone of the stories range from breezy to devastating, the settings from historical to dystopian, the genres from romance to revenge fantasy....the collective impact is undeniably resounding."
Booklist (starred review)
"At the heart of each [story] is a girl (or girls) learning to discover her power...The collective impact is undeniably resounding, and the particularly strong back half will leave readers more than a little bewitched themselves."
