About The Mystic and the Missing Girl: In The Mystic and the Missing Girl, Vikki VanSickle seamlessly draws listeners into an utterly charming world in this unputdownable, small town mystery. Out September 8th 2026.

I consider myself an ambassador for tarot. I am always singing its praises—offering readings to friends, encouraging people to listen to tarot podcasts or replace their standard morning pages with a tarot card pull. Tarot is a highly elastic and interpretive discipline—it serves different purposes for different people. For me, it’s akin to a meditation or journaling practise—a processing method that provides structure and clarity in my life. I’ve had an interest in tarot ever since Janeane Garofalo pulled The Death card in the millennial childhood classic Now and Then, but it took me years to buy my own deck. Tarot felt like something other people did—people who called themselves Wiccan or had an uncanny intuition. I felt a little too mainstream—and a little too skeptical—to pull it off. I’ve always been more of a Scully than a Mulder—I want to believe, but I also want proof.

But a persistent interest in the mythology, artwork, and the history of tarot eventually became too strong to ignore and I got my first deck, the traditional Smith-Rider-Waite. Chances are the imagery that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘tarot’ is from this deck. You may know it as the Rider-Waite deck—Rider as in the publisher William Rider & Son, Waite as in A.E. Waite, creator of the deck. The problem with this name is that it omits the name of the artist, Pamela Colman Smith, a fascinating woman who created all of the imagery on the cards and is believed to have been responsible for deepening the meanings of the minor arcana or ‘pips. To correct this historical wrong, some people refer to the deck as the ‘Rider-Waite-Smith,’ others (like me) as the ‘Smith-Rider-Waite.’ See? Fascinating already!

I was incredibly overwhelmed in the beginning. Seventy-eight cards, jam packed with symbolism and multiple interpretations, are a lot to digest. I devoured tarot books, podcasts, daily card pulls, even a colouring book. I learned that tarot is a practise—an active, on-going process of learning and doing. I made a personal tarot bible with my favourite interpretations, associations, and spreads. Eventually my own tarot language started to emerge. I started to recognize the cards as you would a neighbour or old friend, made my own connections between them, and felt comfortable reading for others.

Reading cards for someone is very intimate. Ninety-nine percent of the time querants (a fancy tarot term for the person getting a reading) have a question about work or love. In the beginning, I felt like an unqualified therapist. Eventually I understood that the querant isn’t seeking my opinion, they are looking for a new way to assess the issue. I think of tarot as a tool, not a crystal ball. I’m not giving predictions, I’m providing a story, a mirror, an angle that hopefully provides clarity, comfort, or a new perspective.

The seeds of my first mystery novel were planted in my tarot practise. As much as I love giving readings, I’m not sure I have the emotional stamina or confidence to be a professional tarot reader, so instead I got to live out that dream via Drew Benson, the main character in my mystery novel, The Mystic and the Missing Girl. Like me, Drew uses tarot as a processing tool. Unlike me, Drew has latent psychic abilities, something she has been reluctant to tap into after watching how her aunt—a nineties-era TV psychic accused of meddling in an unsolved missing person’s case— was vilified by the public. But when the opportunity to solve that very same case comes along twenty years later, Drew realizes it might be those psychic abilities (and her tarot cards) that make all the difference. My own interpretations, experiences, and feelings about the cards are sprinkled throughout the novel. If you’ve never looked at (or cared about) a tarot card in your life, don’t be discouraged—I wanted to approach the tarot elements in an accessible, grounded fashion. You do not need an education in tarot to enjoy the book. But if it encourages you to pick up a deck (there are so many incredible options these days) and start your own practise, then I welcome you to the wonderful world of tarot—it’s lovely here.

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