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jennmarshall27's review
4.0
This is not your typical anthology. Each short story or poem is connected to one of the cards in the Major Arcana of Tarot. It is like drawing a card from your deck and getting a story that embodies everything that card represents. Each story begins by not only listing the author and title, but also the tarot card that the story is based on. You don't have to know anything about tarot to understand this book, but if you do then you get little mini spoilers of how the story might go. Like with all anthologies some stories are better than others, but I look forward to reading and re-reading this book.
vanessajae's review
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
The premise of Arcana immediately piqued my interest because just like the meaning of tarot cards, the meaning of stories depends on the reader and in this case, the plot of the stories depended on the author’s interpretation of their assigned card. Despite the 22 different themes, the majority of the stories turned out pretty similar: mostly fantasy, mostly including romance. This works well in terms of coherence, however, also results in the stories blending in together. Stories that managed to stand out to me are “The Marriage of Ocean and Dust” by Alexandra Seidel with its beautiful imagery, “One More Song” by Eliza Chan with its interesting worldbuilding, and “Vestige” by Annie Neugebauer, which appeared completely out of place with its gruesome horror elements but since the assigned tarot card is Death, it seemed fitting. I also enjoyed “Larkspur and Henbane” by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman and would have loved to read more poems.
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