Welcome to my substack / newsletter! 🫶🏻 This is where you can find updates on my life, my upcoming novels, and my special interests (which are wide and varied though mostly witchy, probably because I have a Gemini stellium and ADHD). Things like writing, publishing, herbalism, astrology, tarot, witchcraft, reading recommendations, cozy games, and more.
If you’re looking for more info on my books, you can find them all here on my website. I also created a bunch of free herb profiles as a part of my work as an herbalist. You can find those here!
Alright, let’s get too it. ✍🏻
Tarot plays a huge part in my upcoming novel, Witches of Honeysuckle House, and as a person who reads tarot myself, I thought it was about time I put out some content about tarot. But before I do that…
I just announced this week that I’m partnering with Wild Sisters Book Co. for signed preorders of Witches of Honeysuckle House. Not only will your copy be signed, but you’ll receive three tarot cards (painted by Shelby K. Cook, a fine artist and my cousin whom I love very much) and a postcard that has a little tarot spread I designed on it (which I’ll probably detail in a post at some point!). You can order either paperback or hardcover. If you have any issues ordering, contact them at wildsistersbookco@gmail.com!
Also, if you submit proof of purchase here, I’ll email you an unpublished prologue to the book. Just be sure to mark that you preordered through Wild Sisters!
If you preorder through a different source (like your own local bookstore!), you can submit proof of purchase to receive a signed book plate, the three tarot cards, and the postcard (while supplies last)!
How does tarot play a role in Witches of Honeysuckle House?
The witches in my upcoming novel have two types of magic: They dip and light candles to bring their desires into the world, and they read tarot cards.
Thirteen years before our main story line takes place, the curse took their mother at Honeysuckle House. Afraid that in thirteen years it would take one of them, they turned to tarot. The deck gave them three cards: the hierophant reversed, temperance reversed, and the hermit. The sisters interpreted the cards differently, and thus began the estrangement that caused one sister to give up her magic and the other to embrace it more fully.
They turned to tarot, as Caldwell witches are known to do. But they’d been unable to agree on what the cards had shown them: The hierophant reversed, temperance reversed, the hermit.
This original tarot reading is only referenced in the novel, but if you submit proof of preorder, I include the scene where they pulled the cards in an unpublished digital prologue.
The three tarot cards that you’ll receive as a part of the preorder campaign are described in the book itself—they’re from the deck that belongs to Florence Caldwell, and once belonged to her great aunt, Violet.
The book is divided into thirteen parts, and each part is represented by a different tarot card—each card is pulled or referenced at some point in the novel.
Why tarot?
I’ve been reading tarot since 2020, which is not that long but also feels like it’s been my entire life somehow. I pull a tarot card every morning as a meditative practice for insight on my day, and I pull cards (usually a three-card spread) before making big decisions. I also do more in-depth spreads on my birthday, at the solstices and equinoxes, and sometimes during full or new moons—or whenever I want more insight than a three-card spread gives.
I’m going to be honest: I was afraid to pick up a tarot deck for a long time thanks almost entirely to my religious trauma. But here’s the thing: there’s nothing scary about tarot.
Tarot wasn’t always a look into the future, but a look into the self. Into those parts of us that need tending or healing. Guidance for how to deal with what was already at work in the world around us.
Can tarot give us insight into the future? Yes, I think so. But to label it as only a divination tool—and to attach fear to certain cards—is deeply limiting. Tarot is a meditation tool. It’s a way to look inside yourself and find that the thing you need in order to get the thing you want is already within your grasp.
To get over my fear of tarot, I had a tarot reading for my thirtieth birthday. I won’t go into the details of that reading here, but I will say it took me another two years to buy my first tarot deck. Why? Because there’s a superstition that your first deck has to be gifted to you.
When, after two years, no one gave me a deck, I bought my own. And nothing bad happened.
If you’re interested in getting a full tarot deck…
If you’re looking to get your first tarot deck (or if you’re superstitious and looking to send a link to a tarot deck to someone else to buy for you), The Gentle Tarot by Mari in the Sky is my absolute favorite. Not only is the art beautiful, but her interpretations of the cards really are gentle (like the name suggests), making them a soft way to ease into tarot. I have several tarot decks, but this is still my daily deck because it makes me feel grounded in my body and connected to the earth.
Currently Mari only has a pocket deck and digital guidebook available, but she’s re-releasing the deck for a limited run with updated art and has a Kickstarter going on for this right now (it ends August 16, so don’t wait!). It’s funded enough that each deck comes with a small guide book, but you can also choose the option that comes with the full-size guidebook, which includes reversal readings. It will be a little while before it’s printed/shipped, but there are still twelve days left to back it, and I cannot stress enough how much I love this deck.
Closing thoughts
At some point I’ll probably put together a more in-depth guide to tarot, and one day I’d love to publish a tarot deck of my own (maybe if Witches of Honeysuckle House is the breakout book I’m hoping for it to be, my publisher will decide they want to get into selling tarot decks and my cousin can design a full deck). Until then, I’ll be writing witchy books and pulling tarot cards to connect to myself and the world around me.
Until next time…
If you made it all the way to the end of this post, hello! Thank you for reading. You can find a little video I made with some of my favorite quotes from Witches of Honeysuckle House here. If you want to hear from me more often, I'm always on Instagram and TikTok, frequently on Threads, slowly migrating to BlueSky, I share all my plant and herb content on Pinterest, and (with help from my husband) I’m finally posting on YouTube.
Wishing you healing wherever you may need it.
xo
Love everything about this! I didn't have my first reading until 2022 and put a deck on my Christmas list this past year and my daughter gifted me a deck and I've been pulling a card every day since and journaling about it each morning. Also, I loved this: "It’s a way to look inside yourself and find that the thing you need in order to get the thing you want is already within your grasp." YES. Love that. Tarot is fantastic for introspection and reflection.
Excited for Witches of Honeysuckle House! How cool would that be to design your own deck!