Arcanum : In The Temple Shadows is a fascinating story about past lives, reincarnation, fate, and magic. I knew I had to read this book when I read that the author had channeled this story about her past life through Tarot Cards. Channeling, divination, and the occult are fascinating subjects and I believe anyone who reads this book will feel a sense of destiny about it.

The story follows Sarah Fuller, a perfumer who has become bored with her life, until she has a Tarot reading that helps her to make sense of the visions from the past she is having. This book is a dual timeline story, one set in present day New York City and the other in Ancient Egypt, following the soul and heart of Sarah as an Egyptian mystic, muse, and lover to a powerful Pharaoh. It is clear that Egyptian Sarrah wants nothing more than to awaken her gifts and be a powerful woman as does present day Sarah who must learn how to take back her power, listen to her intuition, and follow her heart. I loved the juxtaposition between the past life and present life of Sarah and the connecting threads that were woven to both lives. The beguiling ways the past, present, and future aligns for Sarah kept me on the edge of my seat in wonder and anticipation as to when and how she would reconnect with her soul mate, destiny, and power. The story was mystical and aroused a magical sensory experience with great attention to detail that only a channeled story could describe.

I really enjoyed this book and I cannot wait to read the rest of the Arcanum series.

Arcanum: In The Temple Shadows is a unique and imaginative story idea with a book description I found intriguing. With idea of blending occult tarot with romance across thousands of years, this book is really like two love stories combined. However, the execution did not stand up and I feel it is more of a 2.5 star read than a 3 star read, but I rounded up. This is a debut novel for this author. The writing was inconsistent, dialogue felt rushed and even forced at times. The author has the ability to write engaging, descriptive, visual scenes, as seen in several of the filler scenes, sadly those scenes held very little importance to the plot. If the book had been given the same time and attention to detail during the important action scenes and character conversations that it received in the slow filler scenes then it would have been so much better. Instead I found the rushed dialogue and forced, character interactions disengaged me from the book. The pace and flow of the book was also off. I think there is a good bit of writing that needs to be done before this book should be released. It has so much potential, and a little more attention to detail to the main characters' thought processes, realizations and dialogue would take this book from 2.5 stars to 4 stars.

It was really refreshing to see a main character that was a relatable middle-age, not a teen girl, who had life experience, and complexity between being a competent business woman, mother, but also showing her insecurities and struggles. It was also great to see another main character that was child-free and never once felt sad or questioned it. There was some promising character growth, but again it felt rushed/forced in many places. This book has a lot of potential, if only there was more care taken with the more important scenes and events. I think this is supposed to be the first in a series, so I hope the sequel is given more time to really work on flow and attention to detail to really become the engaging read it could be.