Annette and The Hanged Man

from a deck called The Cloisters

Our neighbor, Annette, is an avid reader, so whenever we have a new book published, we give her a copy. The other day, she was headed to the beach with her kids and stopped by to borrow a book. “You mentioned that Tango Key series, Trish, can I borrow one of those?”

The Tango Key series actually started back in the late 1980s, with five books that I wrote as Alison Drake. Four of those books featured a local cop, Aline Scott.  Later, in the mid-90s, I returned to the fictional island of Tango Key with another set of characters – psychic and bookstore owner Mira Morales; her partner, Sheppard, an FBI agent; her young daughter, Annie; and her grandmother, Nadine. So I gave Annette a copy of The Hanged Man, the first book in that series.

Only later did I remember that the characters don’t get to Tango Key until the second book in that series. I also remembered that Annette isn’t a fan of tarot cards, which figure prominently in the murder investigation around which the plot centers.

A few days later, Annette dropped by and said  she’s ready for the second book. “And you wouldn’t believe the synchronicity I had while I was reading The Hanged Man on the beach.”

Okay, I’m all ears. (She, by the way, had the actual book, not the ebook. That cover was not my favorite. But the publisher was afraid to put an actual tarot image on the cover.)

Annette was reading the part in the novel about the tarot deck that Mira and Nadine are using to gain insight into a vision Mira had of the murder that Sheppard is investigating. She suddenly noticed that the  woman closest to her on the beach was laying out cards from a tarot deck.

“Now, you know I don’t like tarot cards. But I was really struck by the synchronicity. I mean, there I am, sitting on the beach reading about the various kinds of tarot decks that exist, and a woman next to me is laying out tarot cards. What are the odds?”

And because Annette can strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, she walked over to the woman and told her about the synchronicity.

Then she went swimming for awhile with her kids, and when they returned to the beach, the woman came over to her and handed Annette a three-page, handwritten tarot reading that she’d just done for her.

Annette had never heard the word synchronicity until we gave her and her twin copies of 7 Secrets of Synchronicity several years ago. The day she finished the book, she stopped by to let us know that she experiences “this stuff” all the time. She just never had a word for it other than coincidence, which she intuitively knew just didn’t quite capture the fullness of the experience.  

“Now,” she said with a laugh, “even my kids know what a synchronicity is.”