Perfect for fans of Mona Awad and Maria Semple, this gripping, offbeat journey through modern-day Los Angeles is a genre-blending, darkly humorous exploration of suburban life, conspiracy theories, and spiritual awakening.
A page-turning psychological trip for anyone who’s ever wondered if all their crazy ideas . . . might actually be right.
Joan is a middle-aged punk rocker turned housewife who’s seen too many TikToks to trust the official narrative. The moon landing? Faked. Weather? Controlled. Food? Poisoned. Her suspicions ignite when a strange new neighbor—possibly a dead astronaut with ties to secret ops—arrives on her block.
As Joan spirals deeper into the rabbit hole, she begins to question everything: her marriage, her sanity, and her soul’s purpose. Armed with a mystical book and a fading voice that once shook LA punk clubs, she sets out on a spiritual journey through canyon trails, desert portals, and shadow realms to expose the truth—and reclaim her power.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"Joan of the Arcane is a hypnotic fever dream. Arresting and absurd, it offers a piercing examination of suburban malaise, forced conformity, conspiracy theory rabbit holes, and the dangers of masquerading as someone other than your true self."
— Emily Jane, USA Today Bestselling Author of On Earth as it Is on Television.
"Timely storytelling at its finest, Joan of the Arcane invites us to consider the truly wild moment we find ourselves in as a species. Confronted by all the potential terror and glory of AI, fueled by conspiracies that seem so much more than merely theoretical, and inspired by the old call toward witchcraft and sisterhood, Joan is someone we all want to route for; in doing so, we honor the part of ourselves that is bold, defiant, magickal, and, above all, curious about hidden truths and concealed histories. A fun and provocative read, this book opens unexpected possibilities about our world we may not see coming. To that end, Joan of the Arcane is an essential addition to any reader’s library."
"Joan of the Arcane is a must-read for anyone who has ever doubted the veracity of official announcements. [The] plot will entice anyone who has ever hovered over an absurd title on an internet video and wondered, “Really, could that be true?"
Earthquake Warnings describes a summer in Los Angeles when the sun was stalled, stripped of its kerosene rudder by a man-made force.
It’s a reaction to a time when the poles could spontaneously reverse, the heavens could unfold and release an asphyxiating dust, or earth could crack open and swallow you up—into a vortex or portal, maybe a star-gate or black hole.
Then you might be propelled into a spiraling critique of how your life turned out.
It’s a kind of reckoning—how you make sense of the past, and reshape it into something glimmering, free of all fallacy and made fresh into tendrils of hope that emanate from the heart like a flashing beacon, a resonance that reaches it target and detonates into authenticity and meaning, leading to a life of honesty and devotion.
Crystal Woman is an exploration on ways we give up our power to the authorities in our lives, how we hold on to trauma and how we can release it, transforming it into our greatest strengths.
This collection of poems is dedicated to the divine feminine within all of us, the one who is howling to be heard under a duct-taped mouth, a blindfold and the full hunter’s moon.
Crystal Woman tells us the time to rip off the tape and blindfold is now. It is time to step forward, to walk into that lonely terrain, into the forests drenched in fear and unknown experiences, to come through to the other side, into our full power. It is only then that we can reclaim the best parts of ourselves we’ve been hiding out of fear for far too long.
About the Author
Alexandra Fleder is a poet, herbalist, oracle, and sometimes a fairy teller. She spends her time reading, writing, editing manuscripts ad nauseum, and planting and tending to native plants and trees in the Santa Monica mountains and along the L.A. River. She lives with her two blind cats in her native Los Angeles.
