Susan Wands

Pamela Colman Smith, newly arrived from New York to her birthplace of London, is received as an oddball in Victorian society. Her second sight helps her in her new job: illustrating tarot cards for the Golden Dawn, a newly formed occult group. But when Pamela refuses to share her creations with Aleister Crowley, a controversial magician, he issues a threat: give up the cards’ power, or he’ll harm her muses.

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“Magician and Fool is a Victorian-era tale of tarot and the potential terrors of meddling with magic. Rich and atmospheric, Wands dazzles with a wealth of research woven into the fabric of the novel, using her own creative magic to bring some of the most bewitching historical figures—including Pamela Colman Smith, Aleister Crowley, Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, Bram Stoker, W.B. Yeats, and even Oscar Wilde—back to life.” – Kira Jane Buxton, Award-winning and Best-selling author of Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures

“Magician and Fool is an enchanting read that whisks you to a time in London when life is steeped in a pioneering, cutting-edge exploration of magic and the otherworldly when a tarot deck is just on the verge of being born. It is a world I loved spending time in from the beginning to the end.” – Naomi McDougall Jones, author of The Wrong Kind of Woman: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood

“Magician and Fool is a heady historical brew brimming with mysterious manuscripts, secret societies, and the story of a young girl whose creation of a powerful deck of Tarot cards might change magic forever. Atmospheric and original.” — Thea Sutton, author of The Women of Blackmouth Street