— calendar girls —

Calendar Girls (October 2018): Hocus Pocus (Best Book with Witches)

October 1, 2018

My post is going up a little later than usual, but I’m happy to still be able to post this on the first Monday of the month! I’ve been very busy lately, and sadly wasn’t able to prep this post in advance. But I’m glad to still be able to post, especially since this month’s prompt is one that I’m very very excited about: Best Book with Witches! I love witches, and I love Halloween, and I love October so this is super exciting!

– About the Event –

Hosted by Katie @ Never Not Reading and Darque Reader Reads “Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event created by Melanie at MNBernard Books, and Flavia at Flavia the Bibliophile, and will now be hosted by me (!), Katie. It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers, and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl. Just like the song, each month has a different theme. Each blogger picks their favorite book from the theme, and on the first Monday of the month reveals their pick in a Calendar Girls post. Make sure to post back to the hostess’s post, and I will make a master list for the month. The master lists allow everyone to see the other Calendar Girls’ picks and to pop on over to their blogs. Thus, we all get to chat about books and even make some new friends!”

– Best Book with Witches –

Toil & Trouble edited by Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood

Edited by: Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood
Type: Fiction, Anthology, Short Stories
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Paranormal, Witches
Publisher: Harlequin Teen (HarperCollins)
Published: August 28, 2018
Source: Publisher

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.

– My Thoughts On the Winner –

I was originally going to pick a novel for this prompt, but I’ve already chosen The Wicked Deep for another category, and the other books that I thought up had been posted by other participants, soooo I was out of excuses and had to post Toil & Trouble! And, I mean, the prompt says “book” rather than “novel,” and this is just the perfect choice for me because it’s an anthology filled with all sorts of witches from different worlds and cultures and backgrounds and I really really enjoyed it and recommend it! You can also read my more detailed thoughts about the book in the full review here!

– Honourable Mentions –

– Other Participants –

Katie @ Never Not Reading – The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman Deanna @ Deanna Writes About It – The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Bird on A Shelf – Balefire by Cate Tiernan Samantha @ Modern Witch’s Bookshelf – The Wicked Deep by Shea Earnshaw
Lucinda @ Lucinda is Reading – The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy Sophie @ Beware the Reader – Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
Dani @ Mousai Books – The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

THANK YOU FOR READING MY CALENDAR GIRLS POST! HAVE YOU EVER READ THE BOOK THAT I HAVE SELECTED FOR THIS MONTH’S PROMPT? IF SO, WHAT DID YOU THINK? AND IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET, IS IT ON YOUR TBR LIST, OR NOT? HOW COME? FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ANY OF YOUR THOUGHTS BELOW, WHETHER YOU’RE A CALENDAR GIRL OR NOT!

27 thoughts on “Calendar Girls (October 2018): Hocus Pocus (Best Book with Witches)”

    1. Yaaaay! And this was actually my first YA anthology, and I’ll definitely be picking more of them up in the future! 😀 I also hope that they publish one of these witchy ones every year and make it a sort of series of anthologies!

    1. I hope that you’ll get to read it soon! And yay! I’m super excited about The Wicked Deep being turned into a movie or show (I forget which) and that author’s next book!

  7. Ha! Talk about not preparing ahead I was the same! I love your choice and I love that title! It’s like a caril

  9. I’ve heard so many amazing things about Toil & Trouble, it’s a great pick. I really want to read this for Halloween but I don’t have time

    1. It was so good! And I’m sorry that you won’t have time to read it around Halloween! But I read it in the summer and it worked then too 🙂

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