Lisa Papez and Francesca Paiocchi have teamed up to create a unicorn-themed storybook and tarot deck set. Lisa is a recognizable name in the online tarot space. She’s an author and content creator who is well-regarded for her tarot deck reviews, tarot tutorials, hot takes, and panel discussions with other tarot community members.

I love that the Unicorn’s Journey Tarot is an infinite fairytale in a box, told and retold in many iterations through a deck of beautifully illustrated cards.

Our protagonist is a unicorn named Mystic who goes on a journey of self-discovery, authentic living, and realizing self-worth. The lessons and messages embedded throughout the Unicorn’s Journey is rich, worthwhile, and inspiring.

Unicorn’s Journey weaves together the hero’s journey narrative structure with contemporary psychological themes of personal empowerment. It’s an incredible tool, with comforting art, that enables you to critically and compassionately examine your thoughts, emotions, actions, and beliefs, and to break through self-limiting beliefs.

The companion storybook Mystic’s Magical Journey, which I would describe as a full-color illustrated children’s book that adults will love, too, features the illustrations from the Major Arcana cards and connects them in sequence to tell the story of Mystic’s journey.

The text is poetry, with charming little rhymes that adds to that magical feel.

“Every night while Mystic slept,
a special star would shine,
revealing Mystic’s secret:
their potential is so divine!”

I loved reading the storybook and for each page, comparing the rhyming lines of the story to the tarot card, and then to the Self-Worth Message in the full-color booklet (the LWB).

The card back design is of from your point of view, seeing through Mystic’s eyes, looking up into the night sky, through the tree tops of Lilac Grove. You are Mystic, guided by that one star visible through the clearing in the tree tops.

Then, throughout the card illustrations you’ll see the recurring symbolism of that special star in the heavens, a north star guiding Mystic.

The deck’s greatest strength lies in its cohesive narrative approach. Unlike traditional tarot decks that present independent archetypal scenes, the Unicorn’s Journey Tarot tells a continuous story through its 78 cards.

We follow Mystic through initial challenges, meetings with mentors and guides, confronting inner doubts and external pressures, and then spiritual transformation, resulting in the emergence of an authentic self.

This narrative structure makes the deck particularly accessible to newcomers while offering depth for experienced practitioners. I’ve found that this deck reads particularly well for daily self-reflection questions, such as “What are my priorities today?” and then pulling a card or two, or “What did I learn from x experience?” and then using the Light and Shadow cards as anchor (I’ll explain later in this post how I work with these bonus cards).

Each card features Mystic navigating different aspects of their hero’s journey, with artwork that combines traditional tarot symbolism with innovative unicorn-centric imagery.

The gradual progression through Mystic’s journey allows the reader to locate themselves within similar stages of development, making it easier to relate to and apply each cards’ message.

The Minor Arcana suits, titled after the four elements, focus on different aspects of self-worth development. In the suit of Fire (Wands), Mystic must be bold, creative, and lean in to their passions and personal powers to undertake great, risky adventures. Working through the Fire cards, you work through themes of passion and creative authenticity.

The Seven of Fire is about Mystic rushing to help guard an unprotected dragon’s nest, expressing the card’s meaning of protection, defense, and defiance. This story is to convey the importance for you to stand up for yourself. The Eight of Fire shows Mystic encountering the dark knights, warning the red dragons, and thus together they’re stronger. I love this reading of the Eight of Wands.

There are so many little details and Easter eggs to love, like Mystic guarding the hatched baby dragon in the Seven of Fire, and then the grown-up dragongs allying with Mystic in the subsequent Eight of Fire.

In the suit of Water (Cups), Mystic is meeting old friends, exploring the many facets of love, and reflecting on how lived experiences measure up to hopes and dreams. This is also the realm of practicing self-compassion and emotional self-acceptance. This is the power of found family.

The Nine of Water, notes the LWB, is Mystic at peace, having found and understood the magic of the place. The Self-Worth Message here: “True happiness is looking around you as well as within you and realizing just how blessed you are in this moment. Count your blessings, lean in to gratitude, and remember that you deserve this.” This being the state of peace depicted in the Nine of Water, of feeling what Mystic is feeling in this illustration.

The suit of Air (Swords) explores personal accountability, but also self-advocacy, and cultivating the mental clarity to face your challenges and obstacles head-on. Ultimately, this suit is the story of personal liberation.

It’s in the suit of Air that we cultivate and develop mental clarity and self-advocacy. If the iconography of unicorns speaks to you, then you’re going to love this deck for self-worth practices. Paiocchi’s whimsical and evocative art with Papez’s knack for presenting tarot practices for personal and spiritual development brings to life a lovely tool for building your self-worth.

As I noted earlier, I love the stories and themes of this deck, and another theme here is heroism. In the Knight of Air, for instance, the Knight is rushing forward to stop the dark knights from attacking innocent creatures in the Lilac Grove. The Knight doesn’t even pause to think or worry before rushing to help. The Queen of Air, which we’ll talk about again later in this review, has helped to pull off the blindfolds from Mystic (as was depicted in the Eight of Air).

For some context, self-worth refers to your sense of inherent value and dignity, irrespective of external achievements, possessions, or societal validation. When you cultivate strong self-worth, you’re empowered with resilience, the ability to discern healthy from unhealthy relationships (and the confidence to walk away from the unhealthy ones), and to approach life with a balanced perspective.

The Three of Air depicts the difficult choice that the hero makes — having to leave behind home and family to undertake the challenge, but a challenge that, if successful, will save many.

The suit of Earth (Pentacles) is about material confidence, resource management, recognizing your worth and the value of your deeds, practical self-care, and how you provide for yourself and others.

I love all the messages the stories contained in the Unicorn’s Journey tells. Like here in the Six of Earth (Six of Pentacles), about sharing with those in need, those who are more vulnerably situated than you.

Also, you’ll notice that the color palette progresses through the deck, reflecting Mystic’s emotional and spiritual development. There’s the reds and golds of the Fire suit, the blue tones in Water, a connecting thread of purple throughout Air, and seasonal earthy colors in Earth

The court cards in this deck depict four other points of view. Whereas the other cards are from the first-person point of view, think of the courts as coming from a third-person point of view.

In the spirit of diverse perspectives that Unicorn’s Journey encourages, the deck turns out to be optimally configured to help answer questions such as, “How does [the other person in a situation] interpret this situation and what is [that person’s] perspective?” Or using this deck to answer a question like, “How would this scenario look from the perspective of someone who disagrees with me?” Another great question to present when reading with Lisa’s deck: “If I were observing this moment (or this situation) as an impartial outsider, what might I notice?” The reading results this deck produces for these sorts of questions is quite astounding, and enlightening.

In fact, this play on point of view and perspective is delightful. Here the Queen of Earth and Five of Earth depict the same scene from different perspectives. In the Queen, you see the scene from inside the hearth, and in the Five, you see the scene from outside looking in.

You’ll see a connection between the Five of Fire and the Queen of Fire. That red-headed unicorn in the background of the Five is the Queen of Fire we now see in the courts of the suit.

The Queen of Air (Swords) is the one who rips off the blindfold that was on Mystic in the Eight of Air. I love this approach to the classic Queen of Swords card in the tarot. Here, she’s the bringer of clarity.

In the Four of Water, Mystic’s friends are swimming away and they’re feeling lonely. In the Queen of Water card, that’s the perspective you see. Then the Five of Water features the Queen comforting Mystic (note also Umbra the Wolf looking on).

I love this addition of the Light and Shadow bonus cards. The “Light” card features Lumen, the unicorn guide who brought Mystic through the portal into Lumiveria. The “Shadow” card features Umbra, the wolf who stood by Mystic during the worst of the trials. The yin and yang ponds guide you in how to read these cards if and when they come up in a reading.

I like to use them as significators, or designators of card positions. Which is to say I pull card for Light and one for Shadow, and together the pairing of cards expresses the essential aspect of my anima and animus, and what I most need to know about my inner self. If you have a copy of the Unicorn’s Journey, give this reading method a try!

The intricate level of thought and world-building that went into designing the Unicorn’s Journey Tarot is incredible. (Like cameos of the Knight of Water throughout the Water suit.) You have to pay attention to recurring symbols, characters, and settings, and then how the settings are depicted from different points of view.

Francesca Paiocchi’s art style blends naturalistic and fantastical themes, with intricate details and an ethereal quality. It’s the perfect style for Unicorn’s Journey Tarot. The King of Earth makes a cameo here in the Eight of Earth and the Nine of Earth shows Mystic getting ready to depart from the Earth Realm, to return home to Lilac Grove.

A key theme explored in this deck is authenticity versus societal expectations. The Self-Worth Messages, the story of Mystic that you’ll read from the LWB, and the detailed illustration work that’s awe-inspiring to the inner child all come together to help you come to terms with your own sense of authenticity and identity, in the face of societal expectations.