Point of View

The collection includes six short stories and one novella. Two of the stories, "Sympathy for the Bones" and "After the Blood," have a first-person narrative. The remaining stories and the novella are told in third-person. None of the narrators repeat, but two stories exist in the same universe: After the Blood and Where the Heart Lives. These stories take place in different timelines and only share they character Henry.

With the exception of "The Last Dignity of Man," all of the stories have a female protagonist at the center of the story. The witches and queen present as female as well. The first story in the collection is "Sympathy for the Bones," which introduces the reader to hoodoo, a type of folk magic performed by women.

The focus of the collection is in women overcoming their situations. The women are presented in varying types of...