Deck Review: The Tarot of Crossed Destinies

• Author & Artist: Andrea Aste www.andreaaste.world
• Publisher: Independent/Self-Published
• Publication Date: June 2026
• ISBN: n/a
• RRP: UK £39.00
• Reviewed by: Gwen Enstam @goldenpomt on IG

In the novel, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, travellers trapped in a silent castle share their stories with each other using a Tarot deck. The Tarot of Crossed Destinies by Andrea Aste invites us to now consider, What if I was there? What story would I tell? Or, in fact, what story would the Castle tell me?

The Tarot of Crossed Destinies takes the concept embedded within Calvino’s novel and releases it from the restrictions of the forest and the stone walls, expanding our Castle into the Mystical, unbound by space or time. Our castle, Aste tells us, is vast, sprawling through an eerie landscape, its inconsistency adding to its mystery. Eldritch enough …

Yet what truly sets the Castle apart is the impossible variance of its endless halls, chambers, and corridors. Some rooms contain entire oceans, others cradle mountains battered by blizzards, deserts where the dunes shift with the wind’s caprice … even entire solar systems dance in its rooms, with their planets turning in solemn silence. (p.16).

As we move from room to room, we become part of the Castle – we are no longer Readers trying to understand messages we receive from some other source. And the path unfolds as we walk it: The Tarot of Crossed Destinies is a myriorama, so no matter which cards we draw, when we align them, boundaries vanish and we find ourselves flowing effortlessly from one space into another as if in a dream. If you have ever cut off the borders of a tarot deck because you wanted to get rid of what was standing between the messages in the cards and create movement, this is exactly what a reading with the Tarot of Crossed Destinies feels like.

And a tip – look on all sides of the images because some of them are open – to the skies, let’s say, and every time I drew one like this, I couldn’t resist the temptation to draw another card and place it within the empty space. What is coming into that room that I can’t see immediately? It adds a whole new dimension to the Castle.

I supported the Tarot of Crossed Destinies on Kickstarter, and I received the deck, a wax-sealed envelope full of age-worn papers, and a card with a QR code that gives access to the beautiful online guidebook. Sometimes these online guidebooks are clearly hastily done, but not this one. It is a work of art in its own right, with a Foreword by John Matthews; an introduction by Andrea Aste; fifty-four pages of card descriptions with full-colour card illustrations; and a lovely section called ‘Architecture of Esoterica’ which gives us several spreads that you won’t see anywhere else because they are made for the world of our Castle.

But don’t be fooled. The rooms you enter might look familiar. The interpretations of the cards might be Rider Waite Smith-based, but the images give so much more to explore. Take The Tower card – lightning strikes as we stand in the middle of the room, not watching from a safe distance – and the Hanged Man, a skeleton dangling in the dungeon, but is he … dancing? And The Popess – her title a nod to the Marseille Tarot used in Calvino’s novel – with two hands reaching around and from behind bookcases. Instinctively, it feels right. But then you think for a moment … why? There are many little hints and clues and puzzles like this in the deck, and the only way to discover them is to allow yourself to be lost in the mystery of what lies behind the next door.

The Tarot of Crossed Destinies will enchant Fool-ish beginners, hesitant Hermits, and experienced Star seekers alike. The cards themselves are beautiful stock, and the box they come in is wonderful – a magnetic Castle door that opens in the middle to reveal … well I can’t tell you that, can I? Who knows what will be there when you are ready to meet your Destiny.

You can order The Tarot of Crossed Destinies from Andrea Aste’s website: https://www.andreaaste.world

Creator Bio:

Andrea Aste https://www.andreaaste.co.uk/ is a multimedia visionary artist and animator, published author and illustrator. His works have been exhibited worldwide in prestigious museums, including the Musée Grévin in Paris, Montreal and Geneva and the Natural Science Museum in Turin, art galleries such as the Guildhall Gallery, London, and at acclaimed art events like the Venice Biennale (2015). In the world of Tarot and graphic novels, Aste is famous for his card decks and hybrid novels: The Book of Shadows: An Alchemist’s Story (2023), The Tarot of Light and Shadow (2020) and The Lost Code of Tarot (2017). He illustrated and authored Oracolarium (2020), the first oracle deck whose cards come to life with augmented reality animations when seen with a mobile app.