Title: Tell Me How It Ends
Author: Quinton Li
Series/Number: Chaos In The Cards #1
Genre: Fantasy
Age: Young Adult
Publication Date: April 9, 2023
Themes: Tarot, Magic, Heists, Lesbian MC, AroAce MC, Found Family, Autism Rep, Anxiety Rep
Synopsis:
A coming-of-age cozy fantasy with a queer cast, witches, and tarot. Perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes and Our Flag Means Death
Iris Galacia’s tarot cards do more than entertain gamblers.
With the flip of her fingers she can predict the future and uncover a person’s secrets. But under the watchful eye of her mother, she is on thin ice for pursuing a passion in the family business, and then cracks start to form until she eventually she falls through.
She is given an ultimatum — a test to prove her worth: earn a thousand coins or leave the business, and the family.
Enter Marin Boudreau, a charming young person who can scale buildings and break off doorknobs, who comes for her help to rescue a witch who’s been falsely imprisoned in Excava Kingdom.
And Marin is willing to pay a high sum for her talents.
But saving a prisoner from royal hands isn’t easy, nor is leaving home for the first time in eighteen years.
Now Iris must learn to trust in herself, Marin, and this new magical world, while racing the clock before the royals decide the fate of the witch, and before any secrets catch up to her.
TELL ME HOW IT ENDS features LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, cultural, and mental health representation. The main character, Iris Galacia, is a lesbian tarot reader with anxiety and autism. The second main character, Marin Boudreau, is an aromantic asexual non-binary person with ADHD.
Thank you to the author for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Tell Me How It Ends is a cozy, exciting, and heartfelt fantasy story about friendship, going out on your own, and discovering your own power. One of the things that really stuck with me about this book was Iris and Marin’s friendship. I loved that they immediately clicked, but that it took some time for Iris to really understand and trust Marin’s interest in being friends with her. I also really enjoyed that Iris just accepted Marin’s antics and behaviour even if sometimes it confused her or she wasn’t sure of the intention behind it.
I really liked that this was a story about found family and learning to trust the people around you and develop a level of care and desire to work together and help one another. Iris didn’t have to go along with Marin’s plot and the plan to try to save the prisoner in question, but she did, despite it being vastly different from what she expected of her life. It was nice to watch her grow and discover new things about herself over the course of the story.
I think that this was a great first book in a fantasy series and I can’t wait to see how the story and characters progress. I think for me the characters were a lot more gripping than the plot was. I really wanted to just watch how the friendships developed and how they got to know each other and got closer to each other. I can’t wait to see how this story continues as the series goes on. It was really nice to see a story that focused on building and strengthening friendships between the characters.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Soulfully Alex 