Photo Credit: Picador Books
This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.
The Fortune Teller
Summary: Semele Cavnow appraises antiquities for an exclusive Manhattan auction house, deciphering ancient texts—and when she discovers a manuscript written in the time of Cleopatra, she knows it will be the find of her career. Its author tells the story of a priceless tarot deck, now lost to history, but as Semele delves further, she realizes the manuscript is more than it seems. Both a memoir and a prophecy, it appears to be the work of a powerful seer, describing devastating wars and natural disasters in detail thousands of years before they occurred.
The more she reads, the more the manuscript begins to affect Semele’s life. But what happened to the tarot deck? As the mystery of her connection to its story deepens, Semele can’t shake the feeling that she’s being followed. Only one person can help her make sense of it all: her client, Theo Bossard. Yet Theo is arrogant and elusive, concealing secrets of his own, and there’s more to Semele’s desire to speak with him than she would like to admit. Can Semele even trust him?
The auction date is swiftly approaching, and someone wants to interfere—someone who knows the cards exist, and that the Bossard manuscript is tied to her. Semele realizes it’s up to her to stop them: the manuscript holds the key to a two-thousand-year-old secret, a secret someone will do anything to possess.
Traveling With T’s Thoughts:
It was surprising to me how much I enjoyed this book. I really had not seen much about it and not having read Gwendolyn’s previous work, I went into the book kinda blind as to her style. This book had me thinking of The Art Forger in some ways- another book that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it!
What I liked:
Semele. She was a great character!
The seer. I’ll admit that, at first, I almost closed the book when I realized that chapters would be alternating with the seer’s voice and Semele’s, but I’m SO GLAD I DIDN’T. As much as I loved Semele’s story- the seer told tales that kept me flipping pages as fast as I could.
The cover!!!
The intrigue. This book has some secrets and they are all pretty much delicious 🙂
Bottom line: Put this on your TBR list. You can thank me later!
*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*
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Happy Reading and Bookishly Yours,
T @ Traveling With T
Traveling With T 
Hallo, Hallo T! 🙂
I am finally getting back into the reading & blog hoppin’ groove I used to enjoy so much! 🙂 I spied this title in your blog archive & immediately jumped in to find if we had a similar reaction! (my review!) I did read Ms Womack’s debut novel – however, as you will see on my blog, I felt this was her opus! She truly threaded everything so brilliantly into this novel, you could not help but forsake sleep just to read how it was going to conclude! I loved how she illuminated another variant of how the Library of Alexandria was lost whilst humbling the people who curated and carried for the library’s collections!
I was simply blown away by the world-building aspects of this novel – I felt so readily transported back to the Library itself – I felt like not only stepped into Ionna’s shoes – I felt I was living her story!
I take it you preferred Semele over Ionna’s sequences!?
How interesting! I love finding out how someone else perceives a story we mutually love – especially if we share a love of the book but have two altering perspectives on it! 🙂 Champion! Gosh! Now I hope you’ll visit me – to see what you might say after you read my thoughts!!
Hi sweet Jorie,
I’m just getting back from vacation so I’ll pop over to check out your thoughts ASAP!
I really enjoyed Semele’s story, but Ionna’s gripped me as well (I just didn’t expect to like it as much as I did!) She def provided me with so much visual of how life was back then!