I am a big fan of author Cedar McCloud's work in tarot/oracle -- Numinous Tarot is a favourite so when The Threadbound Oracle was announced I supported it right away on Kickstarter. This was my first opportunity to read any of their writing (other than a tarot guidebook of course) and I was happy to add their novel The Thread that Binds to my pledge. I got the e-book version.
The Thread that Binds is magical. Cedar has created a world that is so immersive and fully developed that it's easy to sink right in. As a lover of divination, magic, fantasy, and books, I fell in love with this world quickly - who doesn't want to explore a magical library where books' spirits come alive? Cedar's writing is lovely, and their settings are really described in ways that make them easy to imagine. As a queer reader I also appreciated all the diverse 2slgbtq+ representation in this book, including of ace-, aromantic, pansexual, nonbinary, and trans characters (to name a few) as well as polyamorous families and a range of relationship structures, and the creation of a world where gender-neutral pronouns are used by a majority of the characters (and sharing pronouns is a standard part of introductions for everyone, which is wonderful). Cedar's inclusion of content warnings as well as notes on terminology -- most of which I was familiar with but some will be new to many readers -- are also so appreciated.
The Thread that Binds is also a heartwarming story about finding voice and finding family. I will say at a few points the message of the story -- a message I loved -- felt a bit heavy (, a few bits of dialogue here and there really felt "here let me tell you the message"), and the younger characters (who are described as late 20s / early 30s) at times felt significantly younger than that to me. Overall, though, I loved the way The Thread that Binds explores themes of mentorship and support, struggles with identifying gaslighting and recovering from experiences of abuse, partnership and friendship, spirituality divination and magic, and creating family that I could really, really relate to and connect to personally (which is rare in a book, and feels really special to me - I am grateful to Cedar for their book in this sense).
I really enjoyed reading The Thread that Binds with my Threadbound Oracle in hand, being able to connect the novel to the deck, finding different characters depicted in the cards; however, I will note that enjoying this novel does not require the deck, nor does it require any background in tarot/oracle at all. (Though, obviously, given my biases, I say... get the book and deck!) I was very happy to see at the end of the novel that this is a world that Cedar intends to return to -- I will absolutely be adding any future books in this series to my wishlist. ??
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