• Author: Stella Boheme https://www.queenofglamtarot.com/
• Publisher: REDFeather Mind, Body, Spirit (Schiffer Publishing Ltd) – https://schifferbooks.com/products/read-like-a-queen
• Publication Date: 28 November 2025
• Length: 192 pages
• RRP: GBP £18.99; USD $19.99
• ISBN: 978-0-7643-6986-5
• Reviewed by: Ellie Element
   

Stella Boheme is an operatic tenor turned drag queen who founded Queen of Glam Tarot as a way to fuse a love of tarot, a theatrical nature, and all things glamorous. Now residing in Florida, USA, Queen of Glam Tarot delivers “Tarot readings with a glamorous twist to unique venues, conferences, and conventions.” Their motto is: To Uplift and Empower, and essentially the aim of this debut book is to teach and inspire others to empower themselves by using the Tarot as a tool for self-coaching and self-awareness. 

In addition to being a tarot reader, Stella is also a life coach and facilitator and is very clear that the book is not a substitute for counselling, nor intended for self-diagnosis. What it is, is a book of “observations of situations and characters, affirmations, and practices designed to give you a glamorous push into reading the Tarot Like a Queen.”

As well as setting out Stella’s background and credentials, the Introduction gives a helpful overview of topics such as self-transformation, shadow work, “clair-senses”, and what to include in your Tarot travel kit. It also has the first of her signature “Slay Your Practice” boxes which are sprinkled throughout the book and give practical advice and suggestions for deepening your learning and understanding. In this case, to strengthen your intuition, the advice is to take your pack and try to predict what card you’re going to turn over. The more you practice, the more you can expect your accuracy to go up.

The end-note for this chapter from the Queen of Glam asserts:

In this Queen’s not-so-humble Opinion, there really is no work as great as the work of Becoming the best version of yourself.

Chapter 1 gives a quick outline of the structure of a tarot pack, Major Arcana (Big Secrets), Minor Arcana (Little Secrets), the four elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth, and a bit about numerology, and Minor Arcana correspondences. There’s also a section on choosing your deck to reflect your personal style, which also turns into a little soapbox recommendation to support your local metaphysical shop and independent deck creators rather than the large chains. The chapter ends with a note about gender and the male-centric nature of older tarot decks, and points to some of the newer ones, such as the Light Seer’s Tarot by Chris-Ann and Tarot of the Divine by Yoshi Yoshitani, which are more diverse in terms of gender, race and ethnicity; and for those requiring a non-heteronormative view, recommends the book Queering the Tarot by Cassandra Snow. It also gives a short explanation about the concept of masculine and feminine energies that are within all of us, and how pulling a card with an opposite gender depicted could mean the need to embody the attributes associated with that gender. 

Chapter 2 covers the Major Arcana, starting with The Fool’s Journey and a Slay Your Practice exercise of taking the 22 Major Arcana cards out from your deck, setting them out in order, and creating and journalling your own epic saga.

The Rider-Waite-Smith deck is used to illustrate each card, and Keywords, Archetypes, Characters, Planetary correspondence, Focus, and Music are given for each card, followed by Stella’s understanding and interpretation of the card, some Prompts for your Glamorous Journal, and a Glamorous Meditation to help you truly get a feel for the cards. Interspersed are Stella’s own experiences, the experiences of some of her clients, and also from other tarot luminaries, which help to illustrate and interpret the points she is making.

The writing style is easy-going and manages to intersperse humour with the serious and not-so serious aspects of the cards. The Meditations have quirky titles such as Playing in the Sand Box with the Hierophant, and The Transformational Cocoon with Death, which asks you to “imagine yourself being surrounded by a cocoon of peace, love, joy, and all the blessings of your life. As you surround yourself with all these good vibes, feelings and emotions, imagine all the things you’ve been reluctant to let go forming an outer shell around you.”

The Minor Arcana follow on in Chapter 3, and Stella gives her thoughts on Reversals, as well as revisiting the numerology and correspondences sections. Each suit has its own section, and starts with the Element, Colour, Astrological Sign, Energy, Common Themes, and Magical Workings associated with it. This time she incorporates Spells, Rituals, Visualisations and self-improvement exercises as well as Glamorous Journal Prompts and meditations, which are very practical and down-to-earth ways of learning about each card and using it as an aid to self-awareness and self-empowerment. For example, there’s an exercise on Releasing Stressful Thoughts with Your Glamorous Journal linked to the Nine of Swords, and a Standing Your Ground exercise for the Seven of Wands, which is about practising taking a powerful stance (standing) until it feels natural. And, at the end of each suit’s section there’s an exercise for practicing with that suit as a whole.

The Courts are fully covered in Chapter 4, and there’s a short section on Elemental Combinations and the alchemical combination of elements within each card. We’re invited to step in to the world of each Royal Character, with each one having an Archetype (instead of a Keyword), a Focus, and Elemental Combination followed by the usual description and interpretation of the card and Prompts for Your Glamorous Journal.

In Chapter 5 we move on to Crowning the Cards: An Introduction to Spreads, which gives A Few Spreads to Get You Started: a One Card Vibe Check; some 3 Card spreads (e.g. Past, Present, Future; Start, Stop, Finish; Situation, Action, Result); a 5 Card Cross Spread; a 9 Card Spread; a Grief Spread; and in keeping with the glamorous theme, A Cocktail Party Spread.

It also covers Card-Focused Spreads, where one or several cards are chosen and used for a focal point and then cards are drawn from the deck to deliver the message you are most in need of receiving.

There’s a Wheel of the Year Spread, and also spreads for working with Troublesome Cards – the Devil on My Shoulder spread, the Tower of Obstacles spread, and the Dreaded Death Spread. There are also tips for creating your own spread.

Chapter 6 gives a comprehensive list of other resources to help you continue on your tarot journey, including books by Rachel Pollack, Theresa Reed, Mary K Greer, Jenna Matlin, to name a few from the many listed, as well as websites and podcasts.

Does this book live up to the slogan on the back cover: “Demystify the Tarot through real-world practices and commonsense card meanings that are equal parts insight and sequined sass!”? Yes, I think it does! This book does have something for new and seasoned readers alike. Even if you don’t see yourself as a Glamour Queen, some of Stella Boheme’s enthusiasm, knowledge, wisdom and fun will rub off on you.

                 

Stella’s website can be found at: https://www.queenofglamtarot.com/ and includes a Blog.

Read Like A Queen is available for purchase here: https://schifferbooks.com/products/read-like-a-queen

And on Amazon.