I can get like a dog with a bone sometimes.

Especially when it comes to things I really like, like the tarot.

As it turns out, I'm making a U-turn back to the last blog I posted and digging up Pamela and her "Tarot Café" again, this time in the form of "The Tarot Café Novel" by Chandra Rooney.

Right off the bat you can see (obviously) that it wasn't the original author (Sang-Sun Park) who did the book.  She was the artist for the illustrations, but beyond that, it doesn't seem as though she had any real part in the story.

The plot follows Bryn McAllister, an actress recently appointed to the lead role in a fantasy series, and previously known for her portrayal of Queen Titania from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".  Her fiancé, Jack, is missing, and at first Bryn thinks him hard at work on a new series of paintings.  She then starts having dreams, both sleeping and waking, of Jack in the clutches of the Wild Hunt and their lead huntsman, Herne.  Bryn tries to see her usual tarot card reader, Cora (whom TC fans will remember as Divinator Cora from the manga, the female deuteragonist) to try and get a handle on what the dreams are trying to tell her..  However, Cora has moved, and instead Bryn finds her way to Pamela.  Through flashbacks we learn more about the relationship between Jack and Bryn and also really get into Bryn's emotional state.  We also experience the feelings and emotions of Bryn's choices at the end of the book.

The start of each chapter is illustrated in typical Sang-Sun Park style, i.e., an established and well-know tarot card is taken and the face of the main character in the chapter drawn in place of the cards' characters.  These cards are also the cards placed in the reading in each chapter, and the chapters revolve around these placements and their influences in Bryn's life.

The story itself is dark / gothic, drawing on the old feelings people used to get whenever the Wild Hunt was incvolved.  The goth-ness is also heightened by the fact that each of Bryn's dreams plays off at night, when the Wild Hunt typically rode out.

In all, I found the book worth the read and fans of the original "Tarot Café" manga series will be pleased with how close to the original style this novel was written.  There's also an original Sang-Sun Park surprise at the end of the book, so look out for that!