-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
by Jill Dawson
It's the turn of the twentieth century and Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith is a young woman of stark contradictions: plucky yet naïve, artistically gifted despite lacking classical training, fascinated by the esoteric but sceptical of the world around her.
"Pixie". I like it. "Pixie Pamela". It's a good name for me: sometimes tiny and invisible. Other times bouncing up to the ceiling to look down on everyone.
After the deaths of her beloved mother and her troubled but well-intentioned father, Pixie finds herself in the complex, political world of fin-de-siècle art, trying to get her stunning work seen and to forge a name and a path for herself in life. Across Jamaica, Devon, London and Brooklyn, Pixie is a novel of epic proportions, a tale of the twists and turns, séances and secrets, successes and devastation, of one young woman's talent, grit and determination.
In Pixie, Whitbread and Orange Prize-shortlisted author Jill Dawson renders the real-life figure of Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith, artist, publisher and illustrator of the still-iconic Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, in arrestingly vivid detail, breathing life into a story that is instantly knowable, but has, until now, eluded popular imagination.
"Pixie is a captivating insight into the life of the most famous occult artist you've never heard of." ―Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
"In Pixie, Jill Dawson has deftly conjured back into life a woman who is shrouded in mystery and the occult. For too long Pamela Coleman Smith has remained an anecdote to England's rich history of magic, when indeed, via her life and drawings for the Ryder-Waite-Smith tarot deck, she played a central role ... I not only rejoiced in this book, but welcome it as an important work of feminist reclamation ... Pixie is a story that needed to be told. She is in good hands, here, and a work of magic has been done. It's thrilling to live with this book." ―Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
This information about Pixie was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jill Dawson is the author of eleven novels, one poetry collection and the editor of six anthologies of poetry and stories. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a Costa Judge, and taught creative writing in many different settings.
If you liked Pixie, try these:
by Jade Chang
Published 2026
A deeply moving and often hilarious novel following a woman who becomes an internet folk hero in the most unexpected way, catapulting her into fame and influence just as she's finally beginning to reckon with her complicated past.
by Miranda July
Published 2025
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious and surprising novel about a woman upending her life
by Jenny Tinghui. Zhang
Published 2022
A propulsive and dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West.
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
