Relationships in the Tarot Cards - A Guest Post by Alayna Williams

Author Alayna Williams is joining us today on her blog tour for her new release, "Rogue Oracle". Ms. Williams wrote a post for us on a Tarot reading for the leads, Tara and Harry,  in her Oracle series. Thank you Alayna, for coming by today and talking about how you use the Tarot cards to help you better  understand your characters and their relatiosnhips.

First, a bit about Ms. Williams. She also publishes under the name of Laura Bickle. Laura Bickle/Alayna Williams has worked in the unholy trinity of politics, criminology, and technology for several years. She and her chief muse live in the Midwest, owned by four mostly-reformed feral cats.

Her work has been published in Midnight Times, Down in the Cellar, MicroHorror, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction,Ballista , Byzarium, New Myths,a Blog-O-Novella office soap opera for True Office Confessions, and Aoife's Kiss. Her most recent project is the Embers series of urban fantasy novels for Juno-Pocket Books. 

Writing as Laura Bickle, she's the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket - Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she's the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE. More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness is here: http://www.salamanderstales.com/  

Laura/ Alayna’s blog:  http://www.salamanderstales.blogspot.com and http://www.delphisdaughters.com/She’s a proud member of Word Whores and she's at Facebook, and Fangs, Fur, and Fey. And she can also be found on Twitter...@Laura_Bickle

Sparky the fire salamander from EMBERS and SPARKS has his own Twitter account, @SparkySalamandr 

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As I work through telling a story, I often use Tarot cards to give my characters a bit more depth and dimension. The cards are rich storytellers, and if I let my imagination rove around the symbols a bit, I usually gather more information about any plot points or characters I'm stuck on.

Take Tara Sheridan and Harry Li in ROGUE ORACLE, who are federal investigators attempting to catch a killer who's selling nuclear secrets on the international black market. Tara is a criminal profiler who uses Tarot cards to solve crimes. Harry is her straight-laced partner, who had difficulty believing in all things woo-woo.

I first wrote about Tara and Harry in DARK ORACLE. They'd just met, and attraction overcame the obstacles of their very disparate means of working. They were good foils for each other: intuition and reason. But I can't just let them skate by in the second book without obstacles. Relationships in the real world have problems, and Tara and Harry are no exception. To flesh out their challenges, I did a Tarot card reading for them. Here's how it worked...

1. I drew a card to represent Tara in the story. I pulled Strength, which shows a serene woman closing the jaws of a lion. Tara has evolved since the last story, where I figured her as the Queen of Swords, a woman of coldness and mourning. In Strength, I see that she's working on mastering her power as an oracle, symbolized by the lion. She will do so in a way that isn't harsh or brittle, but in a way that flows naturally to her. In Tara's dreams, she imagines herself as the woman in the card, walking through the desert with the lion (her intuition) at her side.

2. The second card I drew to represent Harry. I got the Knight of Pentacles, reversed. Harry was the Knight of Pentacles in DARK ORACLE - a reliable, methodical man who believes in what he can see and touch. He was a good partner for Tara then, drawing her out of her sorrow and into the real world.

But here, he is reversed. When the Knight of Pentacles is reversed, this is a sign of overwork, of burn out, being a workaholic. Between the events of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE, many months have passed, and Tara and Harry have been separated because of Harry's new assignments. He's starting to crack under the pressure of being an isolated federal agent in the Special Projects Division, to the point of nearly beating a suspect to death. He's lost, and Tara has to rescue him from himself.

Tara sees him in her dreams, too, as a Knight sucked under in quicksand. She tries to save him in her dreams, but wonders if she will be able to in real life.

3. The third card I picked represents the relationship between the two. I chose the Nine of Wands. The Nine of Wands shows a wounded man leaning against a staff, surrounded by a wall of staffs that cuts him off from the rest of the world. The card traditionally signifies anticipation, estrangement, and delays.

Harry's withdrawn into himself. It will be up to Tara to reach through that history they have, through the cage of wands and heal him. Both Tara and Harry are guarded types, not given to spontaneous displays of emotion. One or both of them will need to swallow their pride to achieve a reconciliation, to learn to work together and be lovers again.

The cards can be a big help in fleshing out characters and their relationships. One doesn't need to be a professional Tarot reader to try...just grab a deck, a book of meanings, and make up your own spreads. Choose a card that looks like your hero or heroine and your mind's eye, or pick one at random. Shuffle, and start generating ideas. I find that the cards often lead me to possibilities I hadn't considered in the story, helping me make connections that otherwise would have been hidden to me.

Review of Rogue Oracle by Alayna Williams

Publisher: Pocket Books

Release Date: February 22, 2011


More info: goodreads

Series: #2 in the Oracle series


Book Blurb:  Tara Sheridan is the best criminal profiler around - and the most unconventional. Trained as a forensic psychologist, Tara also specializes in Tarot card reading. But she doesn't need her divination skills to realize that the new assignment from her friend and sometime lover, Agent Harry Li, is a dangerous proposition in every way.

Former Cold War operatives, all linked to a top-secret operation tracking the disposal of nuclear weapons in Russia, are disappearing. There are no bodies, and no clues to their whereabouts. Harry suspects a conspiracy to sell arms to the highest bidder. The cards - and Tara's increasingly ominous dreams - suggest something darker. Even as Tara sorts through her feelings for Harry and her fractured relationships with the mysterious order known as Delphi's Daughters, a killer is growing more ruthless by the day. And a nightmare that began decades ago in Chernobyl will reach a terrifying endgame that not even Tara could have foreseen.


My Thoughts: Last week, in my review of the first book, "Dark Oracle" I mentioned that the book wsan't, in my opinion, a solid fit for the urban fantasy genre. This book is definitely an urban fantasy. As soon as the villain of the story, Galen, showed what he could do, I immediately thought "Now THIS is fantasy!" Although, there's some scientific basis too. Williams blends science and fantasy, along with mysticism and mystery into an original, intriguing story. The series is, if not unique, then unusual with potential to be a bestseller.


     Several months have passed since the end of "Dark Oracle". Harry and Tara haven't been able to spend much time together, which has Tara worried. Harry has been busy with his work and Tara busy with helping Cassie, and getting back into profiling. Cassie and Tara are living at the Delphi's Daughters farmhouse which allows Tara to keep an eye on the Pythia and her training of Cassie. She still doesn't trust the Pythia, a distrust that is furthered by a test that the Pythia gives Cassie when she is alone, with no help around.

     As a result of that test, Tara and Harry arrange for US Marshall protection for Cassie by two agents, both named Steve. The Steves are interesting, funny, and well drawn, I hope we'll see them again in future books. They take care of Cassie, and keep her safe, even if their idea of safe doesn't always mesh with Tara's.

     Meanwhile, Harry has asked for Tara's help in tracking down some missing Cold War era operatives. The only apparent connection between them - they all dealt with the aftermath of the Chernobyl incident. Simultaneously, there's been an increase in black market traffic for nuclear weapons, particularly older models. The US government fears that there is a connection between the events.

     Harry's department, Special Projects, is tucked in a corner of the Library of Congress and the ongoing rivalry adds an element of humor. But the librarians there are also, proerly bribed, an enormous help. One librarian in particular has ties to Tara, though she doesn't realize it at first. One of their team members, Sam Veriss, is not so fortunate and has several clashes with the LoC personnel. Verris, an econmist who tracks trends and then tries to make predictions (I simplified, greatly) is not taken seriously and he understandably finds that immensely frustrating. While he doesn't play well with others, he ends up being crucial to the case, and the story.

     Tara's powers are also growing and Williams writes some very vivid dream scenes. Both Tara and Harry are scared at first as the trances involved in her new power leave her so physically cold, that she comes out of them almost in shock. But, they learn to cope and to prepare and Tara even learns how to control, to a degree, the trances and what she sees.

     Galen, a Chernobyl survivor, is at times synpathetic. He survived a horrific experience, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, saw his mother die from it, and himself has been physically affected, though it's not immediately apparent. He gained the ability to touch a person and meld with them. By meld, I mean he ansorbs both their memories and their bodies. His body transforms into the person he has absorbed. It's a painful, messy process but he takes full advantage of his ability to wreak havoc. He feels betrayed by the world and he is hellbent on revenge. Williams clearly did her research on Chernobyl and it's aftermath but at no time did I feel as if I was reading a history lesson or a treatise. She works it into the story and makes you feel the horror.

     Williams weaves all the elements and plotlines - Galen, Chernobyl, Harry & Tara's relationship, Tara & Casie's relationship, the Pythia, the missing operatives, the black market weapons, etc- into a cohesive whole. As I mentioned earlier, she smoothly blends all of the elements into a cohesive, original, enjoyable story. I look forward to more in this series.


This book was received from the publisher for review.

Review: Dark Oracle by Alayna Williams

Book Blurb: 

TARA SHERIDAN HAS A GIFT . . . AND IT ALMOST KILLED HER. 
 As a criminal profiler, Tara used science and her intuitive skill at Tarot card divination to track down the dangerous and depraved, including the serial killer who left her scarred from head to toe. Since that savage attack, Tara has been a recluse. But now an ancient secret society known as Delphi’s Daughters has asked for her help in locating missing scientist Lowell Magnusson. And Tara, armed with her Tarot deck, her .38, and a stack of misgivings, agrees to try. 

Tara immediately senses there is far more at stake than one man’s life. At his government lab in the New Mexico desert, Magnusson had developed groundbreaking technology with terrifying potential. Working alongside the brusque but charismatic agent Harry Li, Tara discovers that Magnusson’s daughter, Cassie, has knowledge that makes her a target too. The more Tara sees into the future, the more there is to fear. She knows she has to protect Cassie. But there may be no way to protect herself—from the enemies circling around her, or from the long-buried powers stirring to life within. . . .

My Thoughts: As I first read this book I kept wondering why it was classified and marketed as Urban Fantasy. The book spine even calls it that. The book is primarily a mystery, with a little romance and some slight mystical aspects. However, as the story progressed more supernatural elements were gradually introduced. The lead character, Tara, is a practitioner of the Tarot cards. She uses them in her personal life, and, in her former career as an FBI profiler, she used the cards to help in her work. My problem is that it moslty felt like a mystery to me, with some mild supernatuiral elements. The readings are both on point yet vague (which I'm told is how they work in real life too). Tara doesn't actually "see" anything (despite what the blurb says), it's all vague forecastings that are wide open to interpretation. There's a fair amount of science in the book, but I never really felt as if I was reading an urban fantasy. I know that genres and sub-genres are wide open to interpretation, and that's a topic for another day. I just wanted to get that concern/question/comment out of the way. **Note: I am reviewing the second book in the series next week and I'll revisit the UF classification again in that review**


     In some respects the book reminded of Kay Hooper's Bishop: Special Crimes Unit series which are decidedly more UF yet are marketed and sold as mysteries. It's lighter than those stories and the writing not quite as tight but it feels like them nevertheless. 


     Despite (maybe because of?) the genre-confusion, the book is an original. It's mix of Taro cards, a mystical practice with a long history, and the cultish Delphi's Daughters, give this book a different spin. The Daughter's were intriguing and I look forward to reading more about them. One of the Daughters, Adrienne, passionately hates Tara. I never fully bought the explanation for that, it felt weak to me, but she was interesting and one of those people that you enjoy disliking. Another easy to dislike character is Tara's former partner at the FBI, Corvus. As the story went on I began to suspect what horror Corvus had perpetrated in the past. He is a lazy yet ambitious man who knows how to play the system and is content to ruin lives and stab people in the back to get what he wants.


     Many of the characters in the book are gray as opposed to all black (bad) or all white (good). Even Tara is not always likable though I empathize with her. I liked that Williams didn't take the easy way out but made her characters complex. Occasionally, things are predictable but overall, it's an imaginative, enjoyable story with some unusual elements.


Publisher:  Pocket Books                                                 Release date: May 25th, 2010

More info:  goodreads                                                      Series: #1 in the Oracle series 

This book was won in a contest at a blog and sent by the author.