Pixie

'A writer of considerable talent' FINANCIAL TIMES

De: Jill Dawson

Narrado por: Kristin Atherton

Bloomsbury presents Pixie by Jill Dawson, read by Kristin Atherton

“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.

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.

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.©2026 Jill Dawson (P)2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Reseñas de la Crítica

All the best novelists are magicians, conjuring people from the printed page, but some, like Jill Dawson, are particular masters of the occult: bringing figures hidden from history to life . . . Engrossing . . . Dawson fleshes out a fascinating protagonist . . . Meticulously researched . . . An illuminating work of herstorical fiction . . . cementing Colman Smith’s legacy and underscoring Dawson’s reputation as a writer of considerable talent (Susie Mesure)

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)

About how difference and quirkiness should be celebrated. And how we should trust our instincts. And it’s about how hard it is to be a woman artist (GEORGINA MOORE, author of The Garnett Girls)

A rich and marvellous story, a delight (SADIE JONES, Costa First Novel Award-winning author of The Outcast)

Jill Dawson is a truly bold and vigorous and immersive writer, a deep-diver into character and context alike. Pixie (Pamela) Colman Smith is a deliciously, irresistibly quicksilver creation, at once bumptious and insecure, brilliantly certain of her talent and determined to navigate a world that seems to offer no place for her. Dawson evokes a vividly fascinating milieu for her, conjuring up all the extraordinary characters – the shamans and poets, idealists and eccentrics and pushers at boundaries – who came into their own at the beginning of the twentieth century, the end of one era and the dawn of a new and uncertain one (CHRISTOBEL KENT, author of The Loving Husband)

A funny, feminist bildungsroman, suffused with 1900s atmosphere and Sapphic steaminess that will see her scoop up any Sarah Waters fans who haven't already discovered her. I loved it (PATRICK GALE, author of Notes From an Exhibition)

A work of genius . . . A profoundly feminist book (LOUISE DOUGHTY, author of Apple Tree Yard)

Pixie is a living, bouncing, thinking entity on the page . . . A fabulous writer and a wonderful book (LOUISA YOUNG, author of My Dear I Wanted to Tell You)

Irresistible – a sparkling read . . . Pixie’s voice skitters and skates across the page (TIM PEARS, author of The Horseman)

Captivating

I enjoyed the novel and the audiobook narrator. I felt like she really understood Pamela ‘Pixie’ Smith.

Story tries to follow The Fools Journey

Honestly it is very boring. I'm about 4 hours in and wish I could get a refund. The story tries to follow some kind of Fools Journey through the major arcana with Pixie experiencing each card in a made-up life situation. I wouldn't waste my time or money on this one.