4 🌟

Such a fun follow-up to Play the Fool!

Do you every gave stressful times in your life where you just want to pick up a light non romcom book and think about something else for a bit?! This book does just that. The mystery was mysterious enough. Solving a crime with tarot cards was a fun spin. Overall this was a fun book to escape from the real world for awhile.

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

I was a huge fan of PLAY THE FOOL, and this was a welcome and satisfying follow up. I love Katie True's perspective and quick wit. She's a beautiful hot mess, but she's my beautiful hot mess.

When Katie True was a baby she was rescued from a fatal car accident where her parents were killed by Officer Pete. Since then, Katie has not had many successes in her life. She has also been constantly reminded of not wasting her life since she was given a second chance. Eventually Katie does become adept at solving mysteries through reading tarot cards taught to her by her Aunt Rosie (Evidently solving a mystery was in the first book in this series, which I did not read.) When Officer Pete is killed, Katie uses her tarot cards to solve his murder. Unfortunately, the interruption of chapters of Auntie Rosie teaching the meaning of the tarot cards bothered the flow of the book for me. Overall the ending was satisfying and I appreciate the eARC from Netgalley and Random House Publishing/Ballantine Books. This review is my personal opinion. 3.5 stars

Tricks of Fortune by Lina Chern is such a fun, sharp, fast-paced mystery with the kind of dry, snarky humor I love. The main character, Katie True, is exactly the kind of amateur sleuth I want to follow. She’s clever, nosy, a little chaotic, and somehow always in the middle of something she shouldn't be.

The tarot angle adds a cool twist without feeling overdone, and the mystery kept me guessing the whole time. Every time I thought I had it figured out, something new threw me off. The supporting characters are just as entertaining, and there’s this quirky charm to the whole community that made the book even more enjoyable.

If you like your mysteries with sass, secrets, and a main character who gets into a little too much trouble, Tricks of Fortune totally delivers. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book. The tarot cards were interesting to me. I just did not connect with this book. I am not sure if it was because I have not read the first book in the series or something else. I will be honest, I am also not really a fan of the cozy mystery genre.

The story follows Katie True, a tarot card reader who is using her cards to solve the mystery of Officer Pete, the same man that saved her when she was little.

The writing was a bit hard to follow. I felt that there was some lighthearted snark one moment, and then tense mystery moments the next, but they did not fit well. I truly felt lost at times. Characters felt a little one dimensional and were portrayed as Neurodivergent, but I took them as being a bit stereotypical.

This was just not a favorite. 3 stars.

This was a good read! I enjoyed it from start to finish and felt like it was an excellent addition to the series. I'm enjoying getting to know the characters and want to see more books about all of them.

Katie True is a tarot card reader. Her best friend, Gina, is accused of murdering the police officer that saved Katie’s life when she was a baby. She sets out to prove Gina’s innocence and find out who killed this beloved officer.

This was an interesting cozy mystery. I admit I didn’t really get drawn into the story until almost halfway in. There were so many secrets and lies that I had to find out how it all ended. I never read the first book in this series but had no problem reading this as a standalone.

Thank you to Random House - Ballantine | Bantam and NetGalley for this ARC.

I really wanted to like this one. Originally, I very much enjoyed the first book in this series, Play The Fool. However, I feel like Chern lost her voice in this one. Katie was very compelling in her last story. Her journey felt like it was going somewhere at the end of Play The Fool, but did it? Her investigation skills might have improved, but her journey didn’t progress as much as I thought it would. The story itself felt disjointed and stiff in certain places. I see what Chern was trying to accomplish here with the dismantling of the ideal image of a cop, but it fell flat for me. The story almost felt too cop focused for me, when it should have been Katie True and tarot focused. The tarot elements are always fun, but I wish we could’ve had more of them. All in all, this one unfortunately wasn’t for me.

Katie True is at it again with her deck of cards and solving murders! This time she helps solve the case of a murdered police officer, one that saved her life as a child. He has always been seen as a great cop, but what skeletons does he have hiding in his closet? Maybe enough that Katie's tarot reading will do the trick? Or will Jaime have to help her solve this one?

Wow, what a twist! I was so excited to read this one, as book one of the series was a quick and fun little read. This one I found drug on a little bit and then wow, what a twist! I never would have thought what happened would have been done by who did it, and poor Gina, she takes the blame once again. I loved getting more background about Katie and here life. Her character continues to grow and develop and I just love her! Having her own tarot card reading office seemed fun while it lasted but I'm sure she will get business elsewhere when she is not helping Jaime solve crimes.

Thank you Random House publishing and Lina Chern for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Review will be posted on Goodreads and Fable on June 8, 2025.

Katie True finds herself in the middle of her second mystery when the police officer who rescued her from a car accident when she was an infant is found dead - a potential murder victim. Worst of all, her best friend is the prime suspect for the crime.

As Katie uses her intuition and tarot cards to try to make sense of the death, she finds herself learning all sorts of secrets about people she thought she knew.

I liked the flashbacks to when Katie was introduced to tarot cards by her aunt and liked the way the flashbacks fit into the plot. Katie is an interesting person who relies on intuition and who doesn't have her life together. Most of her family is successful and goal oriented. She is still exploring her possible future.

This was an engaging story.

What a fantastic premise for a cozy mystery! The idea of a tarot card reader diving into a murder investigation to clear her best friend's name sounds captivating. It's understandable that jumping into the middle of a series, even with a great setup, can be a bit disorienting when there are references to past events. It's a shame it didn't quite hit the mark for a re-read or to continue the series, but it's great that you still found enjoyment in the story!

In the second book of the Katie True series, we find Katie finally starting to live up to her potential... meaning, instead of failing her way through a series of dead-end jobs, she's now trying to make a living reading the cards. But the personal stakes of making her way in the world are immediately upped when her sort-of-friend Gina is accused of murdering Officer Pete, the cop who saved Katie's life as a baby in an incident that re-shaped both their lives. Officer Pete became a celebrity while Katie felt the pressure to *do* something with the second chance at life she was granted. As Katie tries to find the real murderer, she flashes back to her childhood learning to read the cards, in an interweaving of present and past that deepens our understanding of Katie's character and makes you want to root for her all that much more.

Lina Chern’s TRICKS OF FORTUNE won me over from the start. Despite being the second in the Katie True series, it seemed to work well as a standalone mystery. Katie is a free spirit who might not be expected to thrive in the hard-nosed world of crime. But she has a lot going for her. She is brave to the point of foolhardiness in her relentless pursuit for the truth and she has discovered the perfect vehicle for her natural highly developed intuition, reading Tarot cards.

The book switches back and forth in time from the present unsolved murder to a time in her childhood when her Aunt Rosie taught her the fundamentals of card reading. This book actually seemed like it presented material that would best have been covered in the first. Another reason I felt it was a good place to start in the series…

Chern’s writing really sparkles. Her insights into character, frequently wild descriptions and penetrating social observations are artful, often funny, making Katie a protagonist I’d like to hang near…except for that proclivity to be crime-adjacent…in which case, I look forward to reading more of her. That’s close enough.

With thanks to NetGalley and Bantam / Random House Publishers for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was given Tricks of Fortune by Lina Chern by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book follows tarot card reader, Katie True, as she is running her tarot reading room in her sister’s old real estate office when a local police officer is murdered. This is the same officer who saved Katie when she was a child. And the murder suspect just happens to be her best friend, Gina.

A clever story that twists to the ending that takes some unexpected supernatural turns. An enjoyable mystery for a weekend read.

pretty fun murder mystery which worked quite well. the plotting was pretty interesting and the mystery was well done. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

My first Linda Chem novel but definitely not my last. I did not realize this was a sequel but it carried itself nicely. The beginning was a bit of a slow burn and laid out the story beautifully for part two. I loved the characters throughout. This was fun and quirky with a side of murder.
Thank you NetGalley, Linda Chen and Bantam Books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

First, and most important, read the first novel before trying to read this one. I dived in not realizing there was a prior book and for almost the whole half of this novel, I was so hopelessly lost that several times I considered just walking away while my sanity was still intact. It was like being at your spouse's high school reunion; you don't know anyone, you don't know any of the experiences they are reminiscing about, you just want to go home and read a good book.

However, I kept at it and by the midway mark, things were finally starting to coalesce into an enjoyable murder mystery. The tarot cards are an interesting touch, but the constant dropping into the past with our heroine Katie and her Aunt Rosie, listening in on Rosie's lessons to Katie in reading the cards, was jarring and off-putting to the flow of the current mystery.

Besides not having any idea who the characters were and what their background with each other was and why they even knew each other, there was also the matter of the very slow burn of action (or lack of it) for most of the first half. When the story finally gets going and the players intertwined in the story finally start to make sense, the mystery moves along quite nicely. From the halfway mark to the end, it easily held my attention. The final denouement exposing the true criminal and their motive, though, left me scratching my head. It made little sense. Although all the loose ends were tied up, they didn't make a nice, neat bow. More like the tangled knot a kindergartner would make trying to tie their shoe by themselves for the first time.

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

I greatly enjoyed the first book in Chern's Play the Fool series, following tarot card reader Katie True, and this book is likewise strong. This is a cozy mystery series with a darker edge: the language is coarser, the lewdness blunter, though still mild compared to a lot of other genres. The set up for this delves into police corruption right from the start: Officer Pete, the man made famous for being photographed saving young Katie from an accident years before, is murdered on the job. It quickly is clear that Pete was not the golden hero many thought him to be. Katie's close friend Gina is accused of the crime, and as Katie digs deeper, she finds things dirtier than dirt. The end is especially nice. I kinda-sorta guessed at the murderer, but things were more complicated than that, and I love when that happens.

Are you ready for an engaging read? Check out Tricks of Fortune. It was a great read. Lina Chern did a great job. It's available this summer.

I wanted to like this book but it fell flat for me on many aspects. The characters had no depth and were not at all memorable to include the main character, Katie True. I figured a book involving tarot cards would provide an interesting aspect to a story. Now, some of the background about the history of the cards was cool to learn about. But the authors writing felt disjointed, as did much of the story line. It was hard to follow and I found myself having to go back multiple times because I had forgotten who some characters were.

For a short novel, there was a lot of details that seemed unnecessary and were long winded. I also felt some descriptions the author used were juvenile and out of context which makes a jarring read for the reader. I did not read the previous novel, which maybe would have helped understand the characters better but overall I found the read mundane and boring.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC