Yesterday I posted my review of the latest installment of The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue. If you read the review, you know that The Raven Cycle is by far my favorite on-going series that I am reading right now, and if you’ve read the books you probably feel the same way! I was so excited when I was asked to be a part of this tour celebrating the release of Blue Lily, Lily Blue with a Tarot Reading of THE RAVEN CYCLE series (past, present, and future!). The tour is running from November 1 to November 22, and each stop is revealing a different card from The Raven Cycle Tarot, a Major Arcana 22-card deck inspired by The Raven Cycle series and designed by Maggie Stiefvater herself! Follow the full blog tour to see all 22 Tarot cards revealed, with an opportunity at each stop to win a Limited Edition The Raven Cycle Tarot Deck for yourself!
You can visit the This Is Teen Pinterest page daily for new links to all the tour stops, and scroll down toward the bottom of this post to see the Star card revealed and to enter today’s giveaway!
About The Raven Cycle:
Mystery, Romance and the supernatural combine in this series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater.
Book 1: The Raven Boys
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them–until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her. His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
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But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn’t believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
Book 2: The Dream Thieves
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after….
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Book 3: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
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There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.
Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.
The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.
About the Author:
Entertainment Weekly has called Maggie Stiefvater, “one of the finest YA novelists writing today.” Maggie Stiefvater is a writer, artist, and musician and the New York Times bestselling author of Shiver, hailed by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as, “a lyrical tale,” and by BookPage as, “beautifully written, even poetic at times, and a perfect indulgence for readers of all ages.” There are more than 1.8 million copies of the Shiver trilogy in print. Since publication, rights to thirty-six foreign editions of Shiver have been licensed. Linger, the second book in the Shiver trilogy, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. The Scorpio Races (2011) was named to the following best of the year lists for 2011: Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, The Horn Book and Kirkus Reviews. In addition, The Scorpio Races was named a 2012 Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association and a New York Times Notable Children’s Book. Time Magazine called, The Raven Boys, Book #1 in Stiefvater’s latest New York Times bestselling series The Raven Cycle, “A flirtier kind of horror-fantasy, aimed at teens clutching tattered Twilight and Sandman paperbacks….Stiefvater’s quirky prose has ample nerdy pleasures.” Stiefvater lives in Virginia with her family.
LEARN MORE:
Visit The Raven Cycle Official Site
Visit Maggie Stiefvater’s Official Site
Visit the This is Teen Pinterest page daily to follow The Raven Cycle Tarot Tour
Follow Maggie on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram
About the Major Arcana Tarot Deck:
The tarot is a divination system that uses a deck of cards to gain insight. Most decks are comprised of 78 cards divided into the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana, with each card being symbolic of an energy or spiritual truth. The Major Arcana are known as the “trump cards” because they impart messages of greater weight and significance than the Minor Arcana.
The Star Tarot Card:
The Star Card, when presented upwards, represents hope, faith, renewal, inspiration, and serenity. However, if presented downwards it represents lack of faith, despair, and discouragement. Receiving this card in a Tarot reading (so long as it is upright!) is a sign that you are on the right track, that what you are hoping for is possible – but it is not a card of final answers. You still have a ways to go. The Star is a card of faith, both in your own power, and in powers greater than your own. There are few cards more positive than the Star, because when it appears in your life it is nothing less than a beacon of hope and inspiration. In times of darkness it shows that there is a way out and it can provide the strength and clarity of purpose you need to continue on your journey.
The Star is a great card in terms of the Raven Cycle series because there are so many ways that it is related to both the quest to find Glendower and each characters quest to find themselves.
Past: Blue and her Raven Boy’s search for Glendower is absolutely based on the main concepts represented by the Star card: faith and hope. Gansey’s faith in his belief that Glendower is still waiting out there to be found and his hope that they will be the ones to find them. All of the faith that Ronan, Adam, and Blue put into Gansey and his quest. Blue’s hope that . Faith and hope have always been two of the main themes in these books.
Present: Adam has always had a bit of a lack of faith in his life and he has struggled with doubt and his own self-worth, but in Blue Lily, Lily Blue we see that he has connected with Cabeswater and has begun to find a balance within himself and hope within his own life. Ronan on the other hand contains both faith in his own power and faith in powers greater than his own. Of the group he is the most religious and he believes the most in his own power and ability. We saw in Blue Lily, Lily Blue that Ronan and Adam are getting closer to one another and I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Ronan has faith in himself and in Adam and Adam is finally beginning to have faith in himself and even a bit in Ronan too.
As I said above, up to this point in the series, the search for Glendower has been wholly based on hope and faith. Though it is not a card of final answers, the Star card does show that you are on the right track and we saw in Blue Lily, Lily Blue that this seems to be true. They may not have gotten their final answers yet, but they are on the right track to finding Glendower.
Future: THE STAR is a transformative card. More than anything, the hope and faith is in reference to oneself: finding a way to trust and believe in yourself. This has been a struggle for many of the characters, they are all still figuring themselves out and determining what makes them special and worthy. They are all searching for what Blue calls their “something more.” In the future I expect to see each character finding even more faith in themselves. Soon they will finish their adventure to find Glendower and we will see how each character has grown and changed into new people. I for one am full of hope for their futures
Giveaway:
One (1) winner receives The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, PLUS Limited Edition Maggie Stiefvater Major Arcana tarot deck.
Prizing & samples courtesy of Scholastic. Giveaway open to US addresses only.
How do you enter to win? Enter your name and email in the Rafflecopter application below. Rafflecopter is an application that randomly selects winners. Once you submit your information, it will ask you to complete some tasks. The tasks include tweeting about the sweepstakes, liking “The Young Folks” on Facebook, etc. Just remember that every time you complete a task, you increase your chance of winning! Come back every day to gain more entries. The contest ends on November 23rd at 12:01am EST. Winners will be contacted via email. Good luck!
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