Tarot Fiction

Troubadour

I enjoyed Piers Anthony's book, too (I'm hoping he'll review my book). My favorite all time "tarot-themed" fiction would have to be Ramon Lull's 13th century Blanquerna, which is not so much a book inspired by the Tarot, but the book that probably inspired the early tarot creators in developing various major arcana cards (especially the Fool.. in Blanquera, Ramon the Fool).

I used Ramon Lull and Ramon the Fool as the inspiration for the main character in my own Tarot-themed book (new this season)-- which is both tarot-plotted (Journey of the Fool) and Tarot-character inspired (each major arcana card is a character). The Last Troubadour picked up an unusual "recommended for all public libraries" rating from Library Journal in a review just yesterday: "A handsome troubadour with a beguiling voice leads an astonishing escape heist aided by a witch, a saint, and a couple of knights, monks, and other assorted characters both great and humble. The setting is southern France, the year, 1241. Tales about the Inquisition are not supposed to be amusing and entertaining, but Armstrong (The Game) manages to make them just that while keeping historical integrity mostly intact, if making free use of real and folkloric events alike. The fortified city of Carcassonne-also the location for Kate Mosse's Labyrinth-is held by bickering secular and religious authority much aggravated by the capture of The Jewel, a symbolic leader of the Cathar heresy. Readers will encounter a surprising amount of detail on medieval life that unfolds at a steady pace until the impossible rescue of the Silver Dame at a May Day festival. Two more volumes are on the way, ending at the siege of Montségur. Readers who enjoyed James Patterson and Andrew Gross's The Jester are bound to like this straightforward narrative, and, it should be mentioned, these historical events are a backstory in The Da Vinci Code. Recommended for all public libraries."-
 

Bonnie

Bravo!

Derek:

Congratulations on that well written, very positive review! I loved Ramon and company, and cannot wait for the secodn book in the series (and the special deck that, crossing my fingers, may accompany it!).

Blessings,
Bonnie
 

Teheuti

The Wishing Garden

I just stumbled across a novel called _The Wishing Garden_ by Christy Yorke. How could I have missed it? There's even a glowing review by Diane Wilkes:
http://www.tarotpassages.com/wishgard.htm

Anyway, it's a gentle romance in the style of Alice Hoffman or Nicholas Sparks, but with lots of Tarot. The main character is a Tarot reader and sees everything in terms of Tarot cards. Her meanings for the cards are a little bit different than the standard RWS, although the chapter headings are illustrated with that deck.

Haven't finished it yet, so am taking it on my trip to Egypt.

Mary
 

Kevink

Tarot Fiction.

If I recall correctly, Piers Anthony's Cluster series, as well as the Tarot trilogy
deals with tarot.
_Last Call_ by Tim Powers might prove interesting.
_The Raven Ring_ by Patricia Wrede has an interrupted card reading as a major part of the plot.
_Little, Big_ by John Crowley is very good too. There's a nice new edition coming out this summer that I'm getting, I like the book so much, but there are lots of paperback copies around.
 

Richard Pickman

The Magus by John Fowles

I just read this book, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The tarot does not directly play a huge part in the story (at least not overtly), but it is definitely in there. This is a creepy, compelling, and disturbing book. Highly recommended.
 

Cerulean

Two: Kimberlee Auerbach and Hilary Mantel--Mantel's book has the Tower card

Kimberlee Auerbach's book is reviewed nicely and warmly by Teheuti and I waited for it to come in paperback...lovely 12 card spread and following chapters
do a good almost-from-real-love-life accounts...realistic enough and entertaining enough to feel real.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/devil-lovers-and-me/

But the book that captured my imagination for it's curiously shadow-and-twilight feel is an English-based novel called Beyond Black and it's the novel that has the Tower on the front. The RWS cards that are photographed and he slightly aged bu U.S. Games Systems Inc is still visible on the lower right side of he cards ad the Death card and the Fool card are slightly visible in back.

It's more a psychic-suspense-with a kind of chilly humor and matter-of-factness
from the standpoint of a psychic who makes her living in a kind of twilight world. The main character does psychic readings and small venues in the townships and working class areas of London and the country. She's got a low-class psychic
spirit guide whose quite irritating, but she's also being helped by a young divorced woman who an efficient assistant. The efficient assistant is trying to learn to be a psychic herself. I've only started the book and the way the spirit guides and tarot images pop up in the mind of the main character is quite---well, a good read if you like a chilly novel on a very warm afternoon.

Darn good fiction! I'm going to google it...

http://www.amazon.com/tag/books-mantel/products

Hope this helps!

Cerulean
 

Polympolym

Cardcaptor Sakura is the best thing I know so far.
 

reine de saba

I read Mantel's Beyond Black three times and obviously adored it.

Just read a positive review in the New York times for the Grift by Debra Ginsberg, about a charlatan tarot card reader who suddenly receives genuine psychic abilities and what that does to her life and the business she's built up.

here's the review
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/books/20schi.html

-saba
 

balenciaga

reine de saba said:
I Just read a positive review in the New York times for the Grift by Debra Ginsberg, about a charlatan tarot card reader who suddenly receives genuine psychic abilities and what that does to her life and the business she's built up.

Saba just read my mind.:)
 

memries

Roberston Davies was a Canadian author. His books were must reads in college. His credentials are amazing really.
Anyway some of his books involved Tarot. In fact one was about a gypsy family. It seems so long ago not sure of the name it might have been the Manticore. I would not mind reading them all again. In those days I did not have Tarot cards but was interested.