The Tarot Dimes
✨ Rahel Vega used to run a metaphysical shop.
A cozy, slightly cluttered haven — incense, spell candles, handmade oils. But rising rents and gentrification pushed her out. Now she’s online, trying to compete with TikTok psychics and YouTube tarot readers… and frankly, she has no clue what she’s doing.
But she does know how to help people.
So when clients show up with problems that go way beyond the usual heartbreak or confusion — Rahel listens. She dives deep. And somehow, without meaning to, she ends up investigating spiritual attacks, uncovering long-buried secrets, and getting tangled up in high-stakes mysteries. The cases keep getting stranger. And sometimes? The police get involved. Sometimes, Rahel gets arrested.
Each book is its own spiritual mystery.
Each one introduces new clients, new adventures, and new problems that don’t fit inside a five-card spread. But the world keeps growing — and so does the chosen family Rahel builds along the way. Some people return. Some disappear. All of them leave a mark.
It’s a story about what happens when intuition meets real life.
And when helping others becomes its own kind of initiation.
🔗 Want to know what inspired this series?
The Books
The High Priestess’ Game – Volume 1
When tarot reader Rahel Vega loses her metaphysical shop due to increasing rent prices and with it her livelihood in the ruthless streets of New York City, she turns to a new skill—a spell that lets her manipulate chance itself. With no other options, she uses it to win big at the casino, turning herself from a struggling spiritual guide into an overnight high-roller.
But after one spectacular win, a fellow gambler warns her of a professional player who vanished under mysterious circumstances after an eerily similar streak of luck. The story rattles Rahel—was it just a cautionary tale, or is there real danger lurking behind the glitz of the casino floor?
Determined to find the truth, Rahel follows the trail of the missing gambler. As the boundaries between fate, magic, and deception blur, she must master her abilities before she bets more than she can afford to lose. Because in this game, the odds aren’t just stacked against her—some players never get a second chance.
🌀 Ready to dive in?
You can either download the full book for free and read it on your favorite device — or start reading chapter by chapter right here on the blog.
Start Reading: The High Priestess’ Game – Volume 1
The Hanged Man’s Secret – Volume 2
Some deaths are expected. Others refuse to rest.
When tarot reader Rahel Vega is hired by troubled heir Jason Green to investigate his grandfather’s passing, she’s skeptical. Seamus Green was 102—what could possibly be unnatural about his death?
But something about Jason’s desperation lingers in Rahel’s mind, and when she consults the cards, they confirm her unease: deception, hidden forces, and a presence that refuses to move on.
As she navigates the world of Manhattan’s elite, Rahel realizes that wealth and privilege can hide secrets far darker than greed or ambition. The deeper she digs, the more she suspects that Seamus’s death wasn’t just a matter of old age—but something far more deliberate.
With her career in flux and unseen forces closing in, Rahel must uncover the truth before it’s buried for good.
The Justice’s Blade – Volume 3
A man isn’t himself.
A detective turns to the psychic he once arrested.
And Rahel Vega’s next case might be her most dangerous yet.
After losing her shop and struggling to rebuild her business, tarot reader Rahel Vega is barely staying afloat—until Detective Johnson brings her a strange case. Harold Finch, a notoriously cranky neighbor, has undergone a complete transformation: kinder, richer… and eerily subdued.
Rahel’s cards whisper of fear, control, and dark forces hiding in plain sight. As she unravels a web of coercion and corruption, she’ll need every ounce of intuition—and the help of her spirit guides—to expose the truth.
Because someone’s pulling the strings.
And they’ve just noticed her tugging on the thread.
The Magician’s Deception – Volume 4
Some readings change lives. This one could end one.
When Rahel Vega agrees to meet a mysterious new client from YouTube, a simple tarot reading turns into something far more dangerous — involving astral traps, energy manipulation, and a shadowy “Ascension Program” that’s anything but divine.
Meanwhile, Grandpa senses that Rahel’s restlessness has little to do with magic and everything to do with loneliness. His solution? Team her up with Clara Zang — a sharp-witted soul with a creative spark and secrets of her own. Together, they begin crafting a spiritual oracle deck unlike anything the world (or the spirits) have ever seen.
But healing others often means confronting your own darkness — and this time, both Rahel and Mister B. may be in deeper than they realize.
Mystery, magic, and a touch of melancholy —
Book Four is a spell you won’t want to break.
Reading Sample
I knocked softly on Clara’s door, three tentative taps more out of courtesy than necessity. The wood felt cool beneath my knuckles, familiar in a way that made my stomach twist with a strange guilt. The last time I’d stood here, I’d come with a lie on my lips and suspicion in my heart, playing the part of an eager art student while hunting for something darker. Today, I was just me—no pretense, no case—and somehow that made me more nervous than facing down any money laundering operation.
“Door’s open!” Clara called from inside.
I pushed the door and stepped into the neat, light-filled space. The apartment hadn’t changed much since my last visit. Afternoon sun streamed through tall windows, casting long golden rectangles across the hardwood floor. The soft rustling of papers, the faint scent of turpentine and lavender oil, the hum of Miles Davis on low in the background—it created a cocoon of creative energy that immediately began to unwind the tension in my shoulders.
Clara looked up from her workbench where she was bent over what appeared to be a half-finished sculpture, her fingers smoothing wet clay with confident, deliberate strokes. A pair of thin wire-framed glasses perched on the end of her nose, spotted with small flecks of dried paint. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun secured with what looked like two colored pencils.
“Hey,” she said, pushing the glasses up with the back of her wrist, her smile easy and genuine. “You found it okay.”
“I did,” I said, shrugging off my light jacket. “It’s not like I didn’t know where you live.”
She grinned and gestured toward the little coat rack by the door. “Make yourself at home.”
I hung up my jacket and glanced around, taking in the space with new eyes. The apartment felt… settled. Still creative chaos in the best way—stacks of paper, paints, some fabric swatches piled on one chair—but neat enough that you could tell Clara had a system.
The clay bust on her worktable caught my eye again. A woman’s face, eyes closed as if in meditation or sleep, but with an expression of quiet determination etched into the curve of her mouth. The details weren’t finished yet, but the shape of it felt alive already, as if it might open its eyes if I looked away too long.
“You’re sculpting again,” I said, moving closer to the workbench, hands stuffed in my pockets to resist the urge to touch the clay.
Clara wiped her hands on a rag tucked into her belt and leaned her hip against the table. “Yeah. Got back to it last week. I’d forgotten how grounding it is. Paint’s fun, but clay…” She looked at the bust with a mix of affection and respect. “Clay holds a grudge if you don’t treat it right.”
I smiled at that, watching the tender way her eyes traced the contours of her creation. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.” She gave a little shrug but looked pleased. “I kept meaning to get back into it, but, you know… life.”
I nodded, understanding more than I wanted to admit. How many things had I set aside because of “life”—or more accurately, because of death and its many complicated echoes I dealt with daily?
“How’s everything else going?” I asked, genuinely curious about how she’d fared after the Kostas mess. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been shaken but resolute, ready to rebuild what the art dealer had nearly destroyed.
“Better than I ever expected, honestly.” She stretched her arms overhead, letting out a content sigh that seemed to come from deep in her bones. “Saved most of what Kostas gave me—figured if anyone deserved to keep that money, it was me. The police didn’t make a fuss about it, thank the gods.”
She moved away from the table, wiping her hands again on the already clay-smeared rag. “And I’m back teaching at the community college again, part-time. Sculpture and realistic landscapes, all that Bob Ross stuff people love at the community college. Nothing fancy, but it pays the bills—and now that I’ve got savings, I’m not stressing about every little thing.”
“That’s really good to hear,” I said, meaning it. Seeing Clara like this—steady, creative, on her feet—was more satisfying than I expected. After everything she’d been through, she deserved this: the job at the community collage, the steady hands, the peace that comes with making something beautiful and knowing it’s yours.
Clara motioned toward the kitchen. “Tea? Coffee?”
“Tea would be amazing,” I said, settling into one of the chairs near her workspace, a worn but comfortable thing with paint-splattered armrests.
She moved easily through the small kitchen space, filling a copper kettle and setting it on the stove with practiced efficiency. There was something calming about watching her work—the way she seemed fully present in every motion, whether shaping clay or preparing tea.
“So,” she called back over her shoulder, amusement threading through her voice, “I’ve been wondering how long it’d take you to show up for those art lessons you pretended to want.”
I laughed, shaking my head at her directness. Of course she’d bring it up right away. “Yeah… I guess I owe you an apology for that.”
Clara waved it off, smiling as she pulled two mismatched mugs from a cabinet. “Water under the bridge. Besides, I figured you weren’t just here to learn collage back then. The way you kept eyeing my bookshelves like they might bite—subtle, you’re not.”
“Well,” I said, leaning back in the chair, oddly relieved by her candor, “this time I actually am.”
“Oh yeah?” She turned, eyebrows raised with curiosity. “Decided to try your hand at art after all?”
“I was thinking about creating my own oracle deck,” I admitted, hands folded in my lap to keep from fidgeting. “I want it to feel personal. Hand-made. Not just some stock-photo thing slapped together in Photoshop.”
Clara’s smile softened, her eyes lighting up a little. “That… is a really beautiful idea.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling a small flush of pride at her approval. “Thing is, I have no idea what I’m doing. I mean, I know the card meanings and what I want them to represent, but the actual making of the deck? Total mystery.”
Clara brought over two steaming mugs and set one down in front of me—a chipped blue ceramic thing with “CREATE” stamped across its side in block letters. She perched on the edge of her workbench again, sipping from her own mug—a taller one glazed in sunset oranges and reds.
“You’re in the right place, then.” She blew gently across the surface of her tea. “So. First things first: collage isn’t about making perfect pictures. It’s about layering, playing, letting things speak to each other in ways that don’t always make sense at first. And yeah, sometimes we get messy.”
“Messy I can handle,” I said, smiling. “It’s the knowing where to start part that feels impossible.”
She set down her mug, leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “We’ll start with the basics. Materials. Composition. But more importantly, we’ll start with what you want the deck to feel like. What kind of energy do you want to infuse into it?”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. This was the part I knew, the part where the spirits and symbols lived in my head, waiting to take form.
“Empowering. Honest.” I closed my eyes briefly, searching for the right words. “Like… like sitting down with someone who sees you exactly as you are and tells you it’s okay. Like the guides do for me.”
When I opened my eyes, Clara was watching me with a thoughtful smile, her head tilted slightly.
“Good. That’s a really good place to start.”
She stood and moved to a shelf behind her workspace, pulling down a few thick stacks of old magazines. She flipped through the pages absently, stopping occasionally on images that caught her attention—a woman with arms outstretched beneath a stormy sky, a child’s hand reaching toward an adult’s across a table, a doorway opening onto a garden overgrown with wildflowers.
“So, tell me,” she said, watching me over the rim of her coffee mug, “why collage for the deck? And why now?”
I leaned back into the chair, cradling my own mug between my palms. The warmth felt grounding, connected me to the present moment when so often my mind drifted between worlds.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” I admitted. “Tarot has been my home base for so long. I know the cards inside out, I’ve worked with them for years—but the thing is, there are already so many tarot decks out there. Thousands of them. Every aesthetic, every philosophy, every little twist on the archetypes you could imagine.”
Clara nodded, waiting for me to continue, her attention steady and genuine.
“And even the Lenormand,” I went on, warming to the subject, “it has its variations. More than people might expect. But when you look at fortune-telling decks—the old-style ones, like the Kipper cards—the field starts to narrow. They’re still there, sure, but the options are limited, and a lot of the imagery feels stuck in the past. Ladies in corsets. Gentlemen with top hats. Letters being delivered by postmen on horseback.”
Clara chuckled softly, setting down a magazine page that showed a group of businesspeople gathered around a conference table. “Yeah, not exactly tuned in to the Amazon Prime generation.”
“Exactly,” I said, smiling at her understanding. “And those decks—they work. I respect them. But I keep thinking… what about the people who live now? What about the questions we actually have today? Things like: ‘Will my boss finally recognize my work?’ or ‘Is this relationship ever going to move forward, or am I wasting my time?’ We’re not always dealing with kings and queens and scandalous love affairs at the masquerade ball.”
Clara tilted her head, her expression turning thoughtful, the afternoon light catching the faint traces of silver in her dark hair. “So you’re thinking modern symbols. A system that matches what people are really going through now.”
“Yes,” I said, leaning forward, the excitement building in my chest as I put words to the vision I’d been carrying. “I don’t want to copy any existing structure directly. I want to create something small, approachable—maybe thirty-five, forty cards to start. Inspired by the fortune-telling systems, but not bound by their rules. Something that gives clear, straightforward messages about life as it is right now. Simple, but potent.”
Clara nodded slowly, eyes narrowing in that way she had when she was fully focused, like she was seeing through the surface of things to what lay beneath. “So not tarot introspection. Not ‘What does this mean for your soul’s journey?’ but ‘Hey, here’s what’s probably going to happen next.'”
“Exactly,” I said, feeling the energy of the idea catching fire as our conversation validated what had been only half-formed thoughts before. “I love tarot—I always will—but tarot often asks why. Why are you reacting like this? What shadow work do you need to do? How do you integrate the lesson? And that’s important, but sometimes…”
“Sometimes you just want to know what the hell is going on,” Clara finished for me, grinning.
“Right!” I laughed, grateful for her understanding. “Like… ‘There’s a third party involved’—full stop. Or ‘Expect news from your workplace.’ These old systems, they had that clarity. But they didn’t keep up with the times. I want to build something that keeps the clarity but speaks the language of right now.”
Clara leaned back against her worktable, arms crossed, smiling like I’d just passed some unspoken test. “You’ve really thought this through.”
I gave a small shrug, feeling a little bashful under her approving gaze. “I’ve been dreaming about it for a while. I just didn’t know where to start. The art part… that’s where I get stuck.”
“Well,” Clara said, reaching for a stack of junk mail and catalogs beside her, flipping through until she found a page with a perfect little cutout of a delivery truck, “lucky for you, art’s my department.” She winked, holding up the picture like a prize.
I laughed, the tension in my shoulders loosening just a bit. “I was thinking about calling it ‘Empowering Visions’. Because that’s what I want it to do—empower. And my online store and YouTube channel are already called ‘Empowering Tarot’. Help people see what’s coming, sure, but also help them feel like they can handle it.”
Clara’s smile softened. “I like that. It feels… honest. And yeah, empowering.” She set down the magazine page and gave me a nod. “We’re gonna make this happen, Rahel. One snip of paper at a time.”
She picked up a pair of scissors—sleek silver ones with black handles—and began slicing out the little delivery truck she’d found. She worked fast but precise, the kind of hand that had done this a thousand times before. The scissors moved with a fluid grace, never hesitating as they followed the contours of the image.
“So,” she said, not looking up from her work, “if we’re really doing this…”
I nodded, still feeling that gentle spark of excitement from our talk about the deck. “We are.”
“…then you’re gonna need to get your hands dirty,” she finished, eyes flicking up with a mischievous grin.
I raised an eyebrow, suddenly wary. “Dirty how?”
She set the scissors down and leaned on the table, folding her arms across her chest. “Dumpster diving, my friend.”
There was a long beat of silence as I stared at her, certain I’d misheard. “I’m sorry,” I said, leaning forward like that might clear the confusion. “Dumpster what?”
“Diving,” Clara replied, her grin widening. “Look, you can go online and print a bunch of stock images, sure. But if you want a deck with soul, with real energy? You want images that already carry a story. Pieces of magazines people flipped through on the subway, old books someone couldn’t bring themselves to throw away until they finally did. Stuff with fingerprints and city dust on it. I’m telling you—that’s where the good stuff is.”
I blinked at her, trying to process what she was suggesting. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.” She picked up a glue stick and waved it like a conductor’s baton. “Some of the best materials I’ve ever used came out of those back-alley recycling bins. People throw away the weirdest, most wonderful things. Trust me, this is how we do it right.”
I swallowed hard, glancing down at my hands—the same hands I’d kept meticulously clean while shuffling cards for clients in my softly lit reading room, behind my polished oak table with its velvet cloth.
“You know I’ve never… uh… gone hunting for art supplies in the trash before, right?”
“Yeah,” Clara said, her grin turning slightly wicked, “I figured.”
She stood up and motioned toward the back of her apartment. “Come on. It’s already getting dark, and the best pickings happen after dusk. People take stuff out with the recycling before tomorrow’s collection.”
I hesitated, glancing down at my neat black leggings and my soft cream sweater that I’d specifically chosen to look professional but approachable. Clara caught the look and let out a snort of laughter.
“Yeah, you’re not going out there in that. C’mere.”
She turned, waving me to follow her into her bedroom. I rose from my chair with the reluctance of someone being led to a strange ritual they hadn’t signed up for, wondering how exactly I’d gone from discussing oracle cards to preparing for a trash expedition in the span of a single cup of tea.