Witchcraft in Your Lips

The six sapphic tales of the supernatural in this anthology from Berman (editor of Final Curtain) feature consistently inventive plots but inconsistent writing. Ivy James delivers a second chance enemies-to-lovers romance in the plotty but rushed “Witch Touched,” as two feuding young witches reunite in search of a missing friend. In the familiar-feeling postapocalyptic America of Mia Dalia’s impactful “A Witch to Live,” a lonely folk healer must choose between her first love and the only family she’s ever known. An urban legend takes on new meaning in Audrey R. Hollis’s “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary” when a young girl seeks connection with a historically misunderstood woman in the mirror. The remaining stories are somewhat less successful: Berman’s creepy and out of place “D Is for Delicious” delves into cannibalism; L.A. Fields’s unfocused “Hex en Pointe” follows a teenager seeking love and purpose at her combination ballet conservatory and witch training school; and the time skips in Joachim Heijndermans’s “It Not Being So Would Be Crazier” make its central monster-witch love story jarring. There are plenty of moments of quirky charm throughout, but as a whole this fails to coalesce. (May)