Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron by Jonathan Strahan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a smart, stylish collection of witch stories all based around the starting point of a tall black pointy witch hat. The hat may be real, metaphorical, allusive, and the witch – well, might be anything.
I really enjoyed this. It’s a collection of some stunning names and I was excited to see Peter S. Beagle and Frances Hardinge in the mix alongside Holly Black. Garth Nix and Neil Gaiman.
The joy of a short story collection is that you can flip back and forth in it and wholly skip stories that aren’t working for you. Following the sensitive and astute introduction by editor Strahan, we slip straight into a stunning opener by Diana Peterfreund and this was probably one of my favourite stories in the entire collection. All of these stories are written with vivid skill but something about Peterfreund’s really hit home.
I also had a lot of love for Hardinge’s contribution. She’s an author I need to read more of and on the basis of this, will definitely be doing so.
There were stories in this that didn’t quite work for me but there were so many that did. This is a really clever, unusual, and occasionally very dark collection of stories that reward the reader hugely.
Daisy May Johnson 
This looks like a fun book. The only author from the list you mention is Frances Hardinge (no Neil Gaiman yet, I know, blasphemy!) You must, must read Hardinge’s Fly By Night. I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to read its sequel.
For a long time I mixed that up with KM Peyton’s book ‘Fly By Night’, but now I’ve sorted that out in my head, Hardinge’s is very much on my to be read list 🙂