As someone who is new to Tarot, I found this book to be informative. In addition to relating to Tarot cards, the author suggested using some of the prompts for journaling. As someone who goes to therapy, I found these extremely helpful in addition to my sessions. Although she doesn't go into detail regarding all of the cards, the main ones are explained. I feel I will use this reference book many times in the future as I go on my Tarot journey.

Thank you to St. Martins Press and #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

AMAZING. Love this as a big proponent of therapy and studying tarot for the last couple of years. Highly recommend!!

Since I’m all about reading diverse books, obviously I was quick to request and wish for this read on NetGalley. Tarot Therapy by Leona Nichole Black was my first time reading a tarot book written by a Black woman and I am here for the diverse perspective offered. This is such an interesting read for people who are into reading tarot cards! Black has a unique way of combining arcana with emotions, lessons learned, and biography. It has both wit and charm that is unmatched.

I’m relatively new to reading tarot cards and have been trying to read all I can to familiarize myself with the art. While there is no shortage of books to explain and learn from, I found Tarot Therapy spoke to me in a way the others didn’t. It was really the way the incorporated therapeutic principals to tarot. The chapters explores each card in-depth, explaining how they relate to commonly experienced emotions and how we can process them. It made sense when laid out like this. Readers are offered three-card-pulls along with questions to journal and discuss with a trusted person.

Overall, this was a fantastic read. Incredibly informative, I can tell I will be referring back to this book often. The questions posed throughout the text can be asked over-and-over again, giving me the feeling the cards will have different responses at different points in my life. I found Black opened a new world of opportunities for the use of tarot with this book. I highly recommend adding it to your bookshelf. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a temporary e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Right away, I can tell this book is different from most tarot books out there and valuable in its contribution to tarot discourse. I pretty much immediately requested it for our library's collection! From page one, Leona Nichole Black's voice is inviting and in no way gatekeepy. Her approach to the cards is clearly "TAROT IS FOR EVERYBODY." And I love that—because it is. Anyone can pick up a deck, pull some cards, and take away something meaningful from what they see before them.

While folks new to tarot can certainly begin their journey with this book (and maybe should?), readers need to know that this text is not a card-by-card reference tool designed to teach you how to interpret all 78 cards in a deck. There are handy reference tables in the back for at-a-glance interpretations, but if you're looking for in-depth descriptions for all the cards and a prescriptive approach for how to read them, this ain't it.

Instead, Black offers a series of thematic explorations that are anchored in three (or in one case, just one) of the 22 major arcana cards of the tarot. These themes are love, purpose, healing, change, truth, hope, intuition, and creativity, and Black provides example questions to help the reader explore these themes with tarot. It is an unconventional approach in that it only deals directly with the majors (though minor arcana cards show up in examples), and it is not a 0-21 linear path. Rather, the author bucks the system to provide a more organic, less alienatingly rigid introduction to reading tarot. By design, this book gives its reader more questions than answers.

One particularly interesting aspect of this book is that Black emphasizes that her recommended questions do not have to be used with a tarot deck. Instead, these introspective questions can be used as journal prompts on your own or as discussion questions with a group. It's clear that the author wants the approach she lays out to be as accessible as possible—which is pretty much the opposite of "real" therapy, with mental health services being inaccessible to much of the population.

I look forward to using this book in my own practice, as I really do resonate with the author's style of writing and her approach the cards. (All hail the three-card spread!)

Review posted to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5366136897

TAROT THERAPY by Leona Nichole Black, is TRUE THERAPY! I found this book very helpful in learning more about the cards. Not many books focus just on the major arcana. I really like the way this book is laid out, because It's is very user friendly. You can jump to the section you want to focus on in any order. Tarot Therapy is clear without without being too wordy. After using this book I learned a lot more about the cards, but what surprised me the most was how much I learned about myself by doing the exercises in this book. There is a lot of truth, help and hope in the cards!

Tarot Therapy by Leona Nichole Black is a book I would HIGHLY recommend for someone with an already basic understanding of Tarot. If you’re just learning, pick this one up, but wait a bit before reading. This would be a great tool to incorporate into your daily self care use.. This book will challenge you to deeply engage with yourself daily. It’s a fresh new look on tarot cards in your everyday use. It’s a way to explore your life differently rather than using the deck to tell you your future. It will teach you to think in new way

A huge thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin Essentials for this gem. It’s definitely a book I’ll read over and over and always find myself going back to.

As someone who is learning Tarot for the first time I found this book very helpful. She explains wonderfully the history on Tarot Cards and how to read them and understand them in your own way. Recommend for anyone rather you are a professional Tarot reader or a beginner like me this is the book for you.

3/5 Stars

This was just okay. I wouldn't recommend this for someone just learning tarot, as you still have to have some general or basic understanding of the cards. But I do think this would be a great tool to help incorporate into some self-care or daily use. I think the Author brought up some great points about the different ways tarot can be used. I also really enjoyed the aspects of healing and that this isn't and end-all be-all solution for actual talk therapy.

Arc netgalley review

I reviewed this in the netgalley app with color and as it should be published, and then skimmed the kindle version I received. I throughly enjoyed her take on this concept with tarot. The author was straight forward with how this came about for in tarot in within the book, and honest as a Tarot Reader is all I ask, support the concepts you want other to use, and this author did not miss a beat from cover to cover.
This may not be for everyone but who it’s for will find them.

The only reason for 4 vs 5 stars is I would have like her to go more in depth, show more examples, and person experience where using the cards in this way really benefited either the reader or the one getting the reading.

I’ve had my cards read numerous times and found the art of tarot to pique my interest. Tarot Therapy is easy to read. I loved the sections as well as how the author shares her own stories.

Black has not only helped me understand more about tarot, but through her words and experience she’s encouraged me to continue to learn and become more in touch with my emotions. I especially liked the reference guide she included at the end.

An interesting read I’d recommend to anyone interested in a fresh take on tarot.

Offering a modern spin on tarot card reading as a means of psychological and emotional clarity, Leona Nichole Black, a self described educator and tarot therapist, provides detailed examples and explanations on each card in the Tarot’s Major and Minor Arcana, along with suggested guided questions to initiate tarot therapy in her book “Tarot Therapy: Harness the Healing Power of the Deck.”

TheBookMaven graciously thanks NetGalley, Author Leona Nichole Black and Publisher St. Martins Essentials.

Thank you to Net Galley for the eARC!

I have slowly been tipping my toes into Tarot the last couple of years. I am by no means a master on the subject, but I loved how this went about explaining the tarot in its relation to the emotions of the cards. The prompts for card pulls were wonderful exercises to work/write through.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I found this to be a wonderful and fresh perspective on the Tarot. Leona Nichole Black brings new depth to the use of Tarot as therapeutic tool. I found the prompts to be insightful and extremely helpful. I will definitely be integrating many of these ideas into my tarot practice and therapy journey.

Very informative book. Full of a lot of useful information. This book will also be very useful for future reference

A lovely book on how to use the practice of tarot to self-reflect and work on oneself. I really appreciated how the book was laid out, and the presentation was beautiful. If you're into tarot, it's definitely worth a read.

As a long-time student of Tarot, this book caught my eye. What I found between the pages is a fresh new look at the practical everyday use of tarot cards presented in a truly profound way. I love that the book is divided into eight sections.
Starting with Love, the author shares a deeply personal story and journey. The following sections, Purpose, Healing, Change, Truth, and Hope, give the reader a detailed look at ways to utilize the major arcana in a tarot deck to help flesh out the answers to these universal questions. I found the writing to be superb and easy to read and follow.
The final section, The Modern World of Tarot, takes everything shared earlier in the book and gives practical applications that anyone could find helpful and inspiring.
The book is put together in such a way that it does not require linear reading. I love that about it. I went to the sections that appealed to me on my personal journey and found exactly what I needed to find in each segment. This book is a great tool for anyone just starting out with reading tarot cards as well as the seasoned reader as it offers a different approach to enhancing daily life.
I will be purchasing the paperback format of this book to add to my library.

As someone who loves tarot, I enjoyed this book a lot. It's another way that tarot can help with healing and learning about yourself. I loved how it was written by a Black woman, first of all. It just goes to show that tarot is for everyone, even if other people try to claim it for themselves. I loved how she included bits of herself throughout the book so that the reader can relate to her. The love and humility put into this book is just incredible. I thought the little tarot therapy reflections were fun and great ways to learn about yourself and your deck. I also loved that each card is given an explanation and keywords that help the reader remember its importance. I will cherish this read for awhile.

I’m relatively new to tarot cards, and have been reading a few books to familiarize myself with this art, and learn more about the cards and their meanings. While there are no shortage of books that can explain how to do a spread and what each of the cards mean, Black offers a whole new perspective on the art.

The first thing that I noticed while reading this book is that it is so much more than simply a book explaining cards. The author relates cards from the major arcana to emotions, and shares experiences from her own life, often painful experiences, but also plenty of joyful experiences, that she’s gotten to with the help of therapy and tarot. I especially liked how she related the way that tarot cards assisted her in moving through obstacles and getting through various experiences, whether they involved making changes, in relationships, or in processing emotions.

Black explores each card in depth, explaining how they relate to different emotions that are commonly experienced, and how we can process them. I’ve never quite seen the cards explained this way, but it all seemed to make a lot of sense when laid out this way. Throughout each of the chapters, readers are offered in-depth emotional and life-oriented questions to think about and pull three tarot cards to journal about and then discuss with friends or a therapist. It allows readers to put the principles practiced in the text into practice, and really view how tarot therapy can occur in real-time.

This was my first experience reading a book about tarot that was written by a Black woman, or even a person of color, and I loved the diverse perspective that was offered. The author talks about her experience of processing feelings such as anger, which is very different from the white experience of processing anger, especially when viewed through a societal and historical lens. Through her practice of sharing life experiences, she also discussed the influences that her family and religion has had on her later life and how she processes emotions, and I loved the idea of incorporating therapeutic principles with tarot. She also includes a quick reference guide of the minor arcana at the end of the book, along with a matrix to follow when completing an exercise that she provides at the completion of the last chapter.

Overall, this was a fantastic read. It’s incredibly informative, and I can already tell that I’ll be referring back to this book often. The questions posed throughout the text aren’t the kind that you ask once and are finished with, but can be asked over and over again, and will have different responses at different points in my life. And it opens a whole new world of opportunities for the use of tarot.

I absolutely love the idea for this book - using tarot to work through things in your life. I also love the way the author approaches the tarot, ex. you can have your own deck and follow along or you can just listen/read and absorb the information that you need. This book is like a mix between personal development (through journaling and exercises) and an intro to the tarot book. Each section is based on a few cards, and has multiple prompts for you to pull cards and reflect/journal about. I really enjoyed this book, and I look forward do using Tarot Therapy often moving forward.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book.

Strategies about how to use tarot in your life as a tool for healing. Great book for folks who need ideas on incorporating their tarot healing practice.