Now that I am back in the land of the well and recovered from my flu I can start to blog with some actual coherency.

The Tarot of the Side are the creation of Emily Carding who also created the Transparent Oracle and Transparent Tarot. As well as illustrating each of the cards she also wrote the companion booklet.

There are 78 cards in the deck and the suits of the Minor Arcana have been given the associations of the elements that they usually preside over. The traditional Pentacles are the suit of Earth the Makers, Swords are the suit of Air, the Dreamers, Wands are Fire, the Warrior and Cups are Water and the Dancers.

In the Court cards there are Princesses instead of Pages, Princes instead of Knights and Queens and Kings which has remained the same as traditional Tarot decks.

Each of the cards has a nice thick black border and also have key words at the bottom for referencing and easy reading. Depending of course how you like to read the Tarot.

Emily has swapped the order of the Strength and Justice in the order of the Major Arcana. She also renamed The Devil card Pan and also renamed the Hierophant the Elder. The two card name changed are much more aligned with the Pagan/Earth theme of the deck.

The back of the Cards is mainly black with a white labyrinth. The cards are just a little bigger than the larger publishers create but are not hard to shuffle. They are made with nice card stock and laminated in a nice shiny finish. Schiffer Publishing do a pretty dam good job with the decks they publish!

The book has quiet a lot of information. Emily talks a little about who the Sidhe are, use of the cards, card meanings and some pretty nice looking card spreads. (Looking forward to busting a few of these out!) Emily even included a small section about creating your own Tarot spreads. She even has a small bit of information about meditating with the Tarot and how to enter a card for journeying.

I am not actually a fan of the Transparent Tarot and I mention why in my review of it but this is much more a substantial deck, Emily has actually done it justice.

The illustrations are very bright and very full of colour, there is a lot going on in the cards. I think I actually prefer the art of the Minor Arcana in this deck rather than the Major Arcana. It is not my favorite type of artwork but they look like very interesting cards to work with. I have worked very well with decks that I find interesting rather than pretty. I really like working with Fae energy so I am keen to see what I get from the cards while working with them more.