The Cloisters
A Novel
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3.9 • 13 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel from the author of Saltwater, a circle of researchers uncovers a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.
Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.
“A tour de force by an important new voice” (Rachel Kapelke-Dale, author of The Ballerinas), The Cloisters is a haunting and magical blend of genres that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A young woman finds herself caught up in intrigue at a New York City museum in this enveloping mystery. Recent college grad Ann Stilwell is working as a summer intern at Manhattan’s famed museum the Cloisters, searching for evidence that the tarot was used as for divination during the Renaissance. At work, three people are vying for Ann’s attention: Patrick, the mercurial and intense curator of an upcoming exhibit; Rachel, a charismatic and almost too-friendly fellow intern who’s also Patrick’s lover; and Leo, the attractive but slightly sketchy gardener who tends the Cloisters’ beds of poisonous plants. When Ann unexpectedly finds the evidence she’s seeking, someone turns up dead, and she must determine whom she can trust. Ann is a young woman who strives to be tough, pragmatic, and self-sufficient no matter what. You’ll really get how Ann’s quest for emotional support and a secure future might be blinding her to warning signs that the people in her life aren’t as well-intentioned as she thinks.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hays debuts with a moody and suspenseful story of a floundering art history graduate. Though Ann Stillwell has been unsuccessful in pursuing a grad school offer, she nevertheless lands a coveted summer internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—but upon arrival, she learns the offer has been rescinded. Ann then hears of a vacancy at the Cloisters, where she joins the beautiful and supremely competent Rachel Mondray in assisting head curator Patrick Roland on a research project related to the tarot, which, according to Patrick's hypothesis, has much older ties to the occult than scholars had previously assumed. Ann is dazzled by Rachel's wealth, and a quick, intense friendship develops as she is drawn into the research, though she's increasingly unnerved by Patrick's fervor and seeming belief in the occult. Hays carefully leaves the supernatural elements open to interpretation, and Ann's summer is ultimately shaped by a tragedy with a traceably human cause. Readers will be fascinated by the evocative setting as well as the behind-the-scenes glimpses into museum curatorship and the cutthroat games of academia. It makes for an accomplished debut.
