Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes

This short story collection blew me away. Our protagonists, in true fairytale fashion (but perhaps better than I’ve ever seen it) are pushed by circumstance and historical context and prejudice and sometimes cruelty, into situations where they seem to have no choices left. It’s then that the fantastical elements of the stories come in. Through magic – sometimes ugly and grotesque magic and always with a cost – our characters retain their agency and fight back, even though they rarely win a happy ending.