The Woman Behind the Cards: About L. Monroe

I write under the name L. Monroe, a tribute to my roots and a way to keep part of myself private while stepping fully into the stories I was born to tell. My debut novel, The Fifth Card, is the first in The Deck Keepers Series, a Southern Gothic fiction project inspired by the haunted beauty of Appalachia, family secrets, and the power of inherited magic.

This story was born from a personal longing to reconnect with the ancestral threads that run through my bloodline. I come from a long line of women with an uncanny sense for the unseen; my mother could read tarot and pendulums with unsettling accuracy. Her cards told the truth, whether you wanted to hear it or not. Writing The Fifth Card was my way of exploring what it means to carry that legacy, especially when you don’t ask for it.

Set between the hollers of Kentucky and the river towns of Tennessee, The Fifth Card explores what happens when fate catches up to a family who tried to bury the past. It’s a novel about a woman haunted by blood and love, by the man she couldn’t forget and the mother she couldn’t outrun. It’s about the cost of silence, the weight of guilt, and the stories we inherit even when we don’t believe in them.

In addition to writing, I’m currently curating a collection of custom tarot cards, sigils, and book-inspired items that will be available in my online shop. These offerings are meant to deepen the world of the novel and give readers something tangible to hold, something beautiful, eerie, and charged with meaning.

I’m also working on the next installment in the series, which continues the story through the eyes of the next generation. Like the first, it draws from Appalachian folklore, spiritual legacy, and the old belief that the cards never lie. But they don’t always show you everything.

Welcome to the world of The Fifth Card. The deck is in your hands now.