- Iago’s Penumbra by Rose Guildenstern
- Published by Redfeather, June 2023
- ISBN 978-0764366321
- Price £16 GBP / $17USD
- Reviewed by Attila Kárpáthy
‘Iago’s Penumbra’ is the debut novel from Rose Guildenstern, who also creates and practices tarot under the name Juno Lucina. The book is an exciting dive into life, death, the afterlife, the end of the world and transcending love, blending shades of William Shakespeare and modern, dystopian fantasy/horror stories spiced with philosophy.
What makes Iago’s Penumbra a good book is Rose Guildenstern’s talent for writing a good story with metaphysical depths and paranormal elements, combining real-life experiences and human feelings with supernatural and fantastic wanderings. Most surprisingly, all these eclectic ingredients come together nicely and create a coherent story in her pen. You know a book is good when you can’t put it down. Rose Guildenstern takes the readers prisoner at the beginning of the novel and will not set them free until the very last “together” of the book. And perhaps not even then because, after all, this is a ghost story that will come back haunting.
Over at the author’s official website, the cards of Iago’s Arcana in the book have been presented as a specially designed Tarot deck with twenty-two cards. With the latest online technology, Iago’s Arcana provides three types of divination at any time of day on your computer or mobile device. One can draw the card of the day, read one of the twenty-two Poetic Arcana, or the quote of the day. The twenty-two cards seem to be generated with AI technology. Some of them are associated with the characters from the book. For instance, Julie is the Lover, Vee is the Fool, Val is the Moon, Peter is the Hermit, and obviously, Iago is the Devil. Reading the novel, we can learn their stories and who they are, while the Tarot cards may reveal their unseen features.
Each card has a few keywords attributed, while the interpretation of the cards is more philosophical than strictly practical and divinatory. Some of these descriptions are genuine riddles, adding more mystery to the whole story. Iago’s Arcana offers a unique experience for each visitor every time. I fancy combining the three types of divination, yet the tools are at the discretion of each user.
I have pulled the Death card, the poem associated with the Strength card, and the quote related to the World card: “For the beauty of a story is not that it never ends, but that it is only within the dark nothingness of endings you can begin anew.”
I would not be surprised if the Tarot deck will be physically released at some point – perhaps not a Major only, but a complete seventy-eight cards deck. The future is an ever-changing mystery.
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