I always love a book that helps me learn more about my craft and perfect my practices. This book was no exception, definitely one to buy and have on my shelf for reference.

Very informative book. Full of a lot of useful information. This book will also be very useful for future reference

The information that was presented was informative. I hope the book is better formatted when published as the formatting took away from the book. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

This book seems to fall into the latter of the 2. It had, A disappointing read after so much hype. Also the text was completely messed up on one of my devices but mostly worked on the other.

[The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

The e-book formatting was terrible... But I really enjoyed this book! The first chapters contain a lot of card meanings and exercises that are super helpful for beginners. Throughout the book the topics and exercises get more advanced. They are perfect for people who already know how the tarot works and who want to get more creative in their practice. I definitely recommend this book!

This book packs a lot of information and material in a bit over 300 pages. Elford takes readers from how to start reading and using Tarot cards all the way to suggestions and advice for going pro (if you so choose). In between, she provides a lot of ways, techniques, and tools to "use the cards to enhance your life." Naturally, you don't have to do everything in the book; a strength of the book is in the variety of activities Elford offers to readers. Tarot users will probably find something to learn or use no matter their skill level.


The book is arranged as follows:


Author's notes and introduction.
3 Major Parts:
What Tarot Is. The first 3 chapters go over history, structure, meanings and spreads.
What You Can Do With Tarot. The next 5 chapters look at a variety of creative activities you can do with Tarot. These include writing practices, creative crafts, spiritual practices, invocations, and rituals.
Putting It All Together. This includes reading cards for others and networking with others in the Tarot community.
A bibliography.



In addition to the wealth of information, I found this book easy to read and very accessible. I've done Tarot and cartomancy for a few years now, but I consider myself very much a beginner. Elford's text is welcoming, and her words are encouraging. Unlike other Tarot gurus I've read (that I will not name), she is not pretentious nor does she assume you come in with a lot of esoteric knowledge beforehand. She is like a teacher happy to see you, welcomes you with open arms, and strives to teach at various levels. Are you a complete beginner? Start at the beginning of the book and work your way through. You got a bit of knowledge and experience? It is OK to skip ahead to what you need.


Speaking of teaching, the book chapters are well organized pedagogically. Each chapter starts with a list of objectives. Chapters then include practical exercises, and they end with a list of books related to the topics discussed in a chapter so you can read further. I wish more Tarot and cartomancy books were this well organized.


One important detail I missed was some photographs, especially in the crafting sections. While the author provides fairly detailed instructions for craft projects, like making a Tarot deck bag, there are no photos in the book. For those of use who may need a bit more visual help a photo and/or diagram or two would have been very helpful in these sections.


I read the book cover to cover for this review. However, I am confident this is a good book that I would use in and out in my Tarot practice. Do an exercise here, make a spread there, so on. This is a book you can keep coming back to, and it is one I would add to my personal cartomancy shelf. If you want to give a beginner a book, this is certainly a good choice. Overall, this is one I would buy and keep handy.


For libraries, this is a good selection for public libraries. For academic libraries, if they collect pagan and similar materials, this can be a good option. I know our campus Pagan Coalition might appreciate this one, so I am likely to order a copy for my academic library.

I highly enjoyed this book and the new journey it took me with the tarot. I actually learned a couple new insights on how to use the cards and have been reading for over 15 years now. I like how this book takes the sacred knowledge of the Tarot and intertwines it with daily practices to give us more meaning. I give this book 5 stars because I feel if a brand new reader were to read this book that they may be thrown off course a bit but I do think it's a worthy book to add to your collection. I enjoyed this book on my kindle and read it within a day!

Thank you to Jaymi Elford, Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., and NetGalley for allowing me the extreme pleasure of access to an advanced reader copy of “Tarot Inspired Life: Use the Cards to Enhance Your Life” for an honest review.

While I am a tarot reading of over twenty years, and someone who finds delight in both new decks, and holding true to the old, comfortable ones I've used along the way (oracle, tarot, and rune decks), this book was quite a delight to read over. I find myself pausing and trying out several exercises and activities it encouraged/instructed. I was very pleased to see this wasn't a beginners books, and that beginning was not dedicated to laying out all the meanings of the cards which can be found in several other texts.

While I would love to give this a full star higher, there were still errors that an editor needed to catch (phrasing, and missing letters/words).

This was a really insightful and interesting book, definitely recommended! I have practised Tarot reading for over 20 years now and I was surprised at how much this book challenged some of my preconceived ideas and gave me routes, paths and plans to make Tarot, even more, a part of my everyday life!

While I'm not a newbie to reading cards, my focus has been primarily on oracle cards, rather than tarot. I was very happy to be given the opportunity to read a digital review copy of "Tarot Inspired Life" by Jaymi Elford, courtesy of NetGalley. I found myself bookmarking pages with information and exercises that I want to try with my cards. As I was reading, I found that many of the ideas presented in the book might also be applied to oracle cards. The books has also inspired me to start keeping a more regular journal of my card readings. While possibly not a "textbook" for brand new beginners to tarot, I feel this book would be a good addition to any card reader's library.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the author's approach to Tarot. The introductory material was great for a newbie like me but didn't seem to drag on in a way that would be redundant for an experienced reader. The exercises and layouts were fantastic. I read the books straight through for purposes of review. I will be going back much more slowly so that I can complete the exercises and play with the layouts.
I would have given this a full five stars, but the ARC had many errors (words missing letters) that made it hard to read.

Tarot Inspired Life by Jaymi Elford

Tarot is something I have dabbled in for a number of years so when I saw this book I wanted to see what it might have to offer. I already knew that the cards are a means to trigger the mind to “see” and foretell and find out but they can also be more and this book proposes some ideas that I had not encountered before. What ideas? Well, using the cards to inspire writing and construct plots was unusual and different and might be of interest to aspiring authors. And, I liked the idea of determining intent before doing a reading then creating a spread that will give specific meaning relevant to the query. There are many spreads out there but the idea of individualizing was and is intriguing. The matrix idea of setting up patterns of cards that allow the comparison of one suit against another and also the cards of like position within a suit with others that hold the same position in another group was intriguing. I have taken cards one at a time within a deck and meditated and let them talk to me but the idea of entering the card was a new one… There were new ideas and old and all in all I found this an intriguing book that I would like to have on my shelves. What I will be trying is laying out the matrixes and picking up the journal I started long ago that first introduced me to reading tarot. I will add to it and I may also pick a card daily and record through the year the card and events that occurred during the day.

Thank you to NetGalley and Llewellyn for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

I found this book to be perfect for the beginner who wants a brief introduction prior to attending a course / workshop on the Tarot. That said there is plenty to gain from this title irrespective of what level you are at. From crafting to creative writing, there is lot here to inspire. With a long career in the publishing industry spanning both traditional and self publishing, I found the chapter on using the tarot to guide a prospective new author through the publishing proces a bit dodgy but at least Elford does mention having a good distribution plan - an aspect largely often not considered. I did find the section on creating tarot ritual with spreads correlating to lunar phases and the seasons the most interesting.

If there’s anything you need to know about tarot and the card meanings this book is a definite must to add to your collection , there’s so much information I will definitely be using this as a reference and guide.......

A focus on the reader doing things with the deck than the information. Goes through a variety of topics - not just goes through the cards. An interesting mix of information and things to do.

This is my favorite book that I have come across about tarot. It explains the cards, arcanas, and suits with direct clarity and invites the reader to study the cards through different exercises to make their own observations and connections. That is only the first chapter. After that, the author covers many uses for tarot, including creativity. Although I received a free ebook copy of this book for review, I plan to add the physical book to my shelf as soon as it is available.

My Review: If you are looking to get into using the Tarot or already do but you want to get into using it in your everyday life then this is the book you should be looking at. I have been using the Tarot for over 20 years and I have to say that this felt like a compile of a lot of different Tarot books all in one. With how-tos, explanations, meanings, exercises, and more! It is great for the beginner or the advanced reader.

Tarot is very important to me. It was my introduction to the occult at age twelve, and continues to be a major fixture in my practices. I picked up this book hoping that, as the title implies, it would help me to further integrate Tarot into my daily routine.
Despite the title, this book really only works as a general introduction to Tarot. Even then, some of the information given (such as the elemental associations for the Tarot court) comes from what seems to be the author’s UPG rather than established tradition.
Now, I’m all for UPG in Tarot - it’s important to connect with your own symbol-set, even if it differs from tradition. So, yes, this wouldn’t be a problem for me, but the book doesn’t explain that it’s UPG. A beginner is going to be left wondering why Kings are associated with Earth here, despite most traditions associating them with Fire.
The most useful parts of this book are the sections where the author details Tarot-related crafts. These include Tarot card display stands, and also tips for deck modification. I’ve always been a fan of physical crafting, as well as deck modification, so I enjoyed these parts. They were also fairly new to me, compared to the rest of the book.
Another part I really enjoyed was “Inspiring the Muse,” where the author focuses on storytelling using the Tarot. This is a major hobby of mine, and I’m delighted to see a beginner-friendly Tarot book that devotes pages to it. In fact, the exercises in this part of the book are much more unique, and useful, than the more generic ones earlier on.
The ritual and meditative exercises in the book, refreshingly, would be appropriate for most belief systems. They aren’t overly-Wiccan or even overly-Pagan. Many still reference deities, and I dislike how the author just leaves places to insert deity names into the rituals.
I may not be religious myself, but better advice would be to tailor each ritual to the deity in question yourself, using the book as a loose guide. The meditations seem to lack a unique spark, and really resemble those you could find in almost any Tarot book geared towards spirituality.
There are also a lot of spreads in this book, along with the exercises. Most of them are quite good. Again, they aren’t terribly unique, but they’re highly functional and worth learning for beginners. The big exception to this would be the seasonal spreads, each of which is exactly the same (one card drawn for each month of the season).
I won’t sugarcoat things. I didn’t enjoy this book much. I learned hardly anything new from it. I also don’t see it as terribly well-written, comprehensive, or otherwise suitable for beginners.
Almost all of the exercises in the book can be found elsewhere, as well as most of the information. There are other books that cover these topics much better.
This is one to skip, I would say. I guess if you’re just getting started with Tarot, this book isn’t the worst introduction you could have, but it is quite far from the best, either. I’m giving this book three out of five stars - it just didn’t resonate with me.

I am fairly new to the topic of tarot, so I found this volume extremely helpful. The history given was very interesting but what I liked most of all where the many, many ideas for using the cards in one’s every day life, and for the purpose of personal self growth and spiritual development instead of using the cards to read for someone else.

#TarotInspiredLife #NetGalley

A very theoretical and interesting book. I suggest this book to intermediate and advanced Tarot readers. This is one of the more detailed books that cover everything from history to modern day techniques.