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The Cloisters: A Novel Hardcover – November 1, 2022
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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.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAtria Books
- Publication dateNovember 1, 2022
- Dimensions6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101668004402
- ISBN-13978-1668004401
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover comes a novel that explores life after tragedy and the enduring spirit of love. | Learn more
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From the Publisher
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Review
“A story of academic obsession, Renaissance magic and the ruthless pursuit of power. Captivating in every sense of the word.” —Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author of The Sanatorium
“Sultry and sinister . . . Hays's debut teems with sexual tension, the secrets of divination, and scholarly obsessiveness. With a jaw-dropping twist at the end, The Cloisters serves as a warning to us all: we may think we know what life has in store, but fate and fortune tend to turn their own tricks." —Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary
“A moody and suspenseful story . . . 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 . . . An accomplished debut.” —Publishers Weekly
“A tour de force by an important new voice, The Cloisters begins as a fish-out-of-water story. But as Katy Hays deftly weaves in layer after layer of the occult, art, and academia, it turns into a rich tapestry that speaks to issues of privilege, power, and ambition—and, more than anything, the darkness lurking just inside ivory towers. Virtuosic and incredibly compelling, The Cloisters grabbed me in a way that no book has done since The Secret History.” —Rachel Kapelke-Dale, author of The Ballerinas
“A tantalizingly clever tale, laced with surprises as devious as its cast of shadowy scholars, The Cloisters had me gripped from cover to cover. Hays’s debut is diabolical and darkly entertaining, a masterwork of literary suspense that surges to an otherworldly conclusion.” —Mark Prins, author of The Latinist
“Like the moment before a thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, The Cloisters is sultry, lush, and trembling with menace.”—Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir
“Mesmerizing . . . A seductive unfurling of lies, envy, and the pull of the occult, The Cloisters does for tarot what The Secret History did for Greek class. This sharp, shadowy book held me in thrall from beginning to star-crossed end.” —Sara Sligar, author of Take Me Apart
“Prepare to lose your entire afternoon to The Cloisters, first for its atmosphere, a medieval museum at the tip of Manhattan, and then to pursuing a young scholar in her search for an ancient tarot deck, while keeping a sharp eye on the brilliant, attractive colleagues who may be out to help her or kill her. Good luck staying ahead of this one and have a great time poring over the many treasures inside.” —Maria Hummel, author of Reese’s Book Club Pick Still Lives
“A sharply smart, engaging debut exploring art, desire, ambition, and privilege set in the mysterious, opulent, famed Cloisters museum in Upper Manhattan, with dark surprises through its final pages. Hays’ smooth narration deftly conjures the complex, sexy webs between her characters . . . A fun, seductive, intelligent read.” —Nicola DeRobertis-Theye, author of The Vietri Project
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I would arrive in New York at the beginning of June. At a time when the heat was building—gathering in the asphalt, reflecting off the glass—until it reached a peak that wouldn’t release long into September. I was going east, unlike so many of the students from my class at Whitman College who were headed west, toward Seattle and San Francisco, sometimes Hong Kong.
The truth was, I wasn’t going east to the place I had originally hoped, which was Cambridge or New Haven, or even Williamstown. But when the emails came from department chairs saying they were very sorry… a competitive applicant pool… best of luck in your future endeavors, I was grateful that one application had yielded a positive result: the Summer Associates Program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A favor, I knew, to my emeritus advisor, Richard Lingraf, who had once been something of an Ivy League luminary before the East Coast weather—or was it a questionable happening at his alma mater?—had chased him west.
They called it an “associates” program, but it was an internship with a meager stipend. It didn’t matter to me; I would have worked two jobs and paid them to be there. It was, after all, the Met. The kind of prestigious imprimatur someone like me—a hick from an unknown school—needed.
Well, Whitman wasn’t entirely unknown. But because I had grown up in Walla Walla, the dusty, single-story town in southeastern Washington where Whitman was located, I rarely encountered anyone from out of the state who knew of its existence. My whole childhood had been the college, an experience that had slowly dulled much of its magic. Where other students arrived on campus excited to start their adult lives anew, I was afforded no such clean slate. This was because both of my parents worked for Whitman. My mother, in dining services, where she planned menus and theme nights for the first-year students who lived in the residence halls: Basque, Ethiopian, asado. If I had lived on campus, she might have planned my meals too, but the financial waiver Whitman granted employees only extended to tuition, and so, I lived at home.
My father, however, had been a linguist—although not one on faculty. An autodidact who borrowed books from Whitman’s Penrose Library, he taught me the difference between the six Latin cases and how to parse rural Italian dialects, all in between his facilities shifts at the college. That is, before he was buried next to my grandparents the summer before my senior year, behind the Lutheran church at the edge of town, the victim of a hit-and-run. He never told me where his love of languages had come from, just that he was grateful I shared it.
“Your dad would be so proud, Ann,” Paula said.
It was the end of my shift at the restaurant where I worked, and where Paula, the hostess, had hired me almost a decade earlier, at the age of fifteen. The space was deep and narrow, with a tarnished tin ceiling, and we had left the front door open, hoping the fresh air would thin out the remaining dinner smells. Every now and then a car would crawl down the wide street outside, its headlights cutting the darkness.
“Thanks, Paula.” I counted out my tips on the counter, trying my best to ignore the arcing red welts that were blooming on my forearm. The dinner rush—busier than usual due to Whitman’s graduation—had forced me to stack plates, hot from the salamander, directly onto my arm. The walk from the kitchen to the dining room was just long enough that the ceramic burned with every trip.
“You know, you can always come back,” said John, the bartender, who released the tap handle and passed me a shifter. We were only allowed one beer per shift, but the rule was rarely followed.
I pressed out my last dollar bill and folded the money into my back pocket. “I know.”
But I didn’t want to come back. My father, so inexplicably and suddenly gone, haunted every block of sidewalk that framed downtown, even the browning patch of grass in front of the restaurant. The escapes I had relied on—books and research—no longer took me far enough away.
“Even if it’s fall and we don’t need the staff,” John continued, “we’ll still hire you.”
I tried to tamp down the panic I felt at the prospect of being back in Walla Walla come fall, when I heard Paula say behind me, “We’re closed.”
I looked over my shoulder to the front door, where a gaggle of girls had gathered, some reading the menu in the vestibule, others having pushed through the screen door, causing the CLOSED sign to slap against the wood.
“But you’re still serving,” said one, pointing at my beer.
“Sorry. Closed,” said John.
“Oh, come on,” said another. Their faces were pinked with the warm flush of alcohol, but I could already see the way the night would end, with black smudges below their eyes and random bruises on their legs. Four years at Whitman, and I’d never had a night like that—just shifters and burned skin.
Paula corralled them with her outstretched arms, pushing them back through the front door; I turned my attention back to John.
“Do you know them?” he asked, casually wiping down the wood bar.
I shook my head. It was hard to make friends in college when you were the only student not living in a dorm. Whitman wasn’t like a state school where such things were common; it was a small liberal arts college, a small, expensive liberal arts college, where everyone lived on campus, or at least started their freshman year that way.
“Town is getting busy. You looking forward to graduation?” He looked at me expectantly, but I met his question with a shrug. I didn’t want to talk about Whitman or graduation. I just wanted to take my money home and safely tuck it in with the other tips I had saved. All year, I’d been working five nights a week, even picking up day shifts when my schedule allowed. If I wasn’t at the library, I was at work. I knew that the exhaustion wouldn’t help me outrun my father’s memory, or the rejections, but it did blunt the sharp reality of it.
My mother never said anything about my schedule, or how I only came home to sleep, but then, she was too preoccupied with her own grief and disappointments to confront mine.
“Tuesday is my last day,” I said, pushing myself away from the bar and tipping back what little was left in my glass before leaning over the counter and placing it in the dish rack. “Only two more shifts to go.”
Paula came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist, and as eager as I was for it to be Tuesday, I let myself soften into her, leaning my head against hers.
“You know he’s out there, right? He can see this happening for you.”
I didn’t believe her; I didn’t believe anyone who told me there was a magic to it all, a logic, but I forced myself to nod anyway. I had already learned that no one wanted to hear what loss was really like.
Two days later I wore a blue polyester robe and accepted my diploma. My mother was there to take a photograph and attend the Art History department party, held on a wet patch of lawn in front of the semi-Gothic Memorial Building, the oldest on Whitman’s campus. I was always acutely aware of how young the building, completed in 1899, was in comparison to those at Harvard or Yale. The Claquato Church, a modest Methodist clapboard structure built in 1857, was the oldest building I had ever seen in person. Maybe that was why I found it so easy to be seduced by the past—it had eluded me in my youth. Eastern Washington was mostly wheatfields and feed stores, silver silos that never showed their age.
In fact, during my four years at Whitman, I had been the department’s only Early Renaissance student. Tucked safely away from the exploits of major artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo, I preferred to study bit characters and forgotten painters who had names like Bembo or Cossa, nicknames like “messy Tom,” or “the squinter.” I studied duchies and courts, never empires. Courts were, after all, delightfully petty and fascinated by the most outlandish things—astrology, amulets, codes—things I, myself, found it impossible to believe in. But these fascinations also meant I was often alone: in the library, or in an independent study with Professor Lingraf, who lumbered into our meetings at least twenty minutes late, if he remembered them at all.
Despite the impracticality of it all, the overlooked edges of the Renaissance had grabbed me with their gilt and pageantry, their belief in magic, their performances of power. That my own world lacked those things made it an easy choice. I had been warned, however, when I began to think about graduate school, that very few departments would be interested in my work. It was too fringe, too small, not ambitious enough or broad enough. Whitman encouraged its students to reexamine the discipline, become ecocritical, explore the multisensory qualities of human vision. There were times I wondered if the things I studied, the overlooked objects no one wanted, had in fact chosen me, because I often felt powerless to abandon them.
In the shade, my mother moved her arms in circles, her silver bracelets jangling as she spoke to another parent. I looked around the party for Lingraf’s shock of white hair, but it was clear he had declined to attend. Although we had worked together for the better part of four years, he rarely made appearances at departmental functions or spoke about his own research. No one knew what he was working on these days, or when he would finally stop showing up on campus. In some ways, working with Lingraf had been a liability. When other students and even faculty heard he was advising me, they often asked if I was sure that was right; he so rarely took on students. But it was. Lingraf had signed off on my thesis, my major completion forms, my letters of recommendation—all of it. This, despite the fact he refused to be part of the Whitman community, preferring instead to work in his office, door closed to distractions, always shuffling his papers into a drawer when anyone arrived.
As I finished scanning the party, Micah Yallsen, a fellow graduating senior, came up alongside me.
“Ann,” he said, “I heard you were going to be in New York this summer.”
Micah had grown up splitting his time between Kuala Lumpur, Honolulu, and Seattle. The kind of grueling travel schedule that necessitated a private plane, or at the bare minimum first-class accommodations.
“Where are you living?”
“I found a sublet in Morningside Heights.”
He speared a wan cube of cheddar off the paper plate in his hand. Whitman never wasted money on catering, and I was sure my mother’s department had prepared the grazing trays in-house.
“It’s only for three months,” I added.
“And after?” he chewed.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“I wish I were taking a gap year,” he said, spinning the toothpick in his mouth contemplatively.
Micah had been accepted into MIT’s History, Theory and Criticism PhD program, one of the most prestigious in the country. But I imagined his gap year would have looked very different from my own.
“I would have been happy to go straight through,” I pointed out.
“It’s just so hard to find a place to study Early Ren these days,” he said. “Our discipline has shifted. It’s for the better, of course.”
I nodded. It was easier than protesting. After all, it was a familiar refrain.
“But even so. We need people to continue the work of past generations. And it’s good to be interested in something—be passionate about something.” He speared another cube of cheese. “But you should also think about trends.”
I was the sort of person for whom trends had always been intractable. By the time I caught them, they were already wiggling their way out of my grasp. What had appealed to me about academia was that it seemed like a place where I could be blissfully free of trends, where one settled into a subject and never left. Lingraf had only ever published books on the artists of Ravenna; he’d never even had to go as far afield as Venice.
“These things matter now,” Micah was saying. “Especially since there’s not much new to be done in the fifteenth century, is there? That’s pretty well covered ground at this point. No new discoveries. Unless someone tries to reattribute a Masaccio or something.” He laughed and took that as his cue to slip into another, more beneficial conversation. His advice doled; his obligation filled. Here, Ann, let me tell you why those rejections came. As if I didn’t already know.
“Do you need help?” My mother leaned against the doorjamb of my bedroom, where I was pulling handfuls of books from my bookcase and stacking them on the floor.
“I’m fine,” I said. But she came into my room anyway, peering into the boxes I had packed and pulling open the drawers of my aging dresser.
“Not much left,” she said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear her. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave a few things here?”
If I had ever felt guilty about leaving her alone in Walla Walla, my own self-preservation had pushed those feelings aside. Even when my father was alive, I had considered my stay in this bedroom temporary. I wanted to see the places he brought home in books from the Penrose Library—the campaniles of Italy, the windswept coastline of Morocco, the twinkling skyscrapers of Manhattan. Places I could only afford to travel to on the page.
The day he died, my father spoke ten languages and could read at least five defunct dialects. Language was his way of venturing beyond the four walls of our home, beyond his own childhood. I regretted that he wasn’t here to see me do the thing he had always wanted most. But my mother was afraid of travel—of planes, of places she didn’t know, of herself—and so, my father usually chose to stay with her, close to home. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had known, if he had known that he would die young, whether he wouldn’t have tried harder to see a few more things.
“I wanted to be sure you could rent the room if you needed to.” I finished filling a box with books, and the sound of the tape gun startled us both.
“I don’t want anyone else living here.”
“Someday you might,” I said gently.
“No. Why would you bring that up? Where would you stay then, if I rented your room? How could I see you if you didn’t come here, come back?”
“You could always come visit,” I ventured.
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
I wanted to argue with her, to look at her and tell her that she could. She could get on a plane, and I would be there, waiting for her at the end, but I knew it wasn’t worth it. She would never come visit me in New York, and I couldn’t stay. If I did, I knew how easy it would be to get caught in the cobwebs, just as she had done.
“I’m still not sure why you want to go in the first place. A big city like that. You’ll be much better looked after here. Where people know you. Know us.”
It was a conversation I knew well, but I didn’t want to spend my last night in the house this way—the way we had spent so many nights after my father died.
“It’s going to be fine, Mom,” I said, not saying aloud the thing I said to myself. It has to be.
She picked up a book that lay on the corner of the bed and thumbed through its pages. My bedroom had just enough space for one bookcase and a dresser, the bed wedged against the wall. “I never realized you had so many of these,” she said.
The books took up more space than my clothes. They always had.
“Hazard of the trade,” I said, relieved she had changed the subject.
“Okay,” she said, putting the book down. “I guess you have to finish.”
And I did, squeezing my books into the boxes that would be mailed and zipping my duffel closed. I reached under my bed, feeling around for the cardboard box where I kept my tips. I felt the weight of the money in my lap.
Tomorrow, I would be in New York.
Product details
- Publisher : Atria Books
- Publication date : November 1, 2022
- Edition : First Edition
- Language : English
- Print length : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1668004402
- ISBN-13 : 978-1668004401
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #466,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,647 in Murder Thrillers
- #1,681 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)
- #3,309 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Katy Hays is a writer and adjunct art history professor in California, where she teaches rural students from Truckee to Tecopa. She holds an MA in art history from Williams College and pursued her PhD at UC Berkeley. Having previously worked at major art institutions, including The Clark Art Institute and SF MoMA, she now lives with her husband and dog, Queso, in Olympic Valley, California. The Cloisters is her first novel.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the novel engaging with a plot that morphs into a psychological thriller and mystery, featuring beautifully descriptive writing and historical references that draw readers in. The book receives positive feedback for its readability and entertainment value, though opinions about character development are mixed, with some finding them well-developed while others say they never connected with them. The pacing receives mixed reviews, with customers noting it begins slowly and the second half feels rushed.
AI Generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book entertaining and fantastic to read, with one mentioning it was particularly enjoyable on the beach.
"...Overall though it was a really good read and now I am on the search for more stories with tarot cards at the center." Read more
"...This read was magical and exciting!" Read more
"...It was a fantastic read on the beach, well paced and descriptive of my home city and my favorite museum...." Read more
"...In the end, this book was a disappointment...." Read more
Customers praise the writing quality of the book, noting its beautiful descriptions and wonderful prose, with one customer highlighting how the setting and atmosphere come alive for readers.
"Wow.. take an intriguing setting, such as the Cloisters in NYC and merge a mystical mystery concerning the Tarot.. I couldn’t put this story down,..." Read more
"...That really took the shine off this story for me. It is well-written. It has an unusual setting and focus. It's entertaining." Read more
"...TL;DR: Interesting concept but exceedingly poor execution. I so wanted to enjoy this book...." Read more
"...None of this would matter if the plot were intriguing or the writing graceful. Authors can take liberties. Of course. Of course they can...." Read more
Customers find the book highly entertaining and immersive, with one customer noting how it slowly builds intrigue.
"Ann Stilwell finally has a wonderful and exciting opportunity! She has a summer position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!..." Read more
"...It is well-written. It has an unusual setting and focus. It's entertaining." Read more
"...Even though the story rolled out at a leisurely pace—slowly building intrigue—there wasn’t enough character development for me to truly understand..." Read more
"...like that which is different, yet still creative, well written, and entertaining . . . I highly recommend this book!" Read more
Customers appreciate the historical references in the book, with one mentioning how the backdrop of history and art draws readers in, while another highlights the fascinating research department.
"...The book also shows the dark, cutthroat world of academia that most people like to pretend does not exist. Highly recommended!" Read more
"...Can’t wait for the next book from author and historian Katy Hays (I also love the detail of her dog’s name, Queso. Incredibly cute!)." Read more
"...I’m not sure I liked Any of these characters. I appreciated all the medieval and ancient references. They definitely added a dimensions to the book...." Read more
"The history grabs you and pulls you in. Great book." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the character development in the book, with some finding them well developed while others describe them as shallow and unengaging.
"...not-quite-right university would have to love the book and cheer on the main character, also portrayed in a wonderful way by Katy Hays...." Read more
"...But what ruined the book for me was the despicable nature of the characters...." Read more
"...The characters are not typical, and if you don't have to feel like you'd like to be best friends with the main character in order to like a book,..." Read more
"Characters are a cold bunch as they run from their realities and mistakes...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with several noting that it begins slowly and the second half seems rushed.
"...this book had way too many lengthy descriptive passages and way too many errors for me to enjoy it...." Read more
"...It was a fantastic read on the beach, well paced and descriptive of my home city and my favorite museum...." Read more
"...I found her unreliable and didn't really want to go on her journey. But the storyline was interesting and I loved the scenery...." Read more
"This book is not the same old, same old kind of mystery. It starts slow and builds steadily, however, as the main character evolves the plot takes..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's descriptions, with some finding them lovely and detailed, while others find them ambiguous and unnecessary.
"I liked The Cloisters a lot. It was a fun ride and I look forward to reading books by Katy Hays in the future...." Read more
"...The main word that comes to me when I think of this novel, however, is vague. This is its major problem...." Read more
"Story held reader immediately. Gothic atmosphere and description of The Cloisters excellent. Loved the characters. Gripping story...." Read more
"...Incredibly cute!)." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2025Format: KindleVerified PurchaseWow.. take an intriguing setting, such as the Cloisters in NYC and merge a mystical mystery concerning the Tarot.. I couldn’t put this story down, read it in one day ! Bravo 👏
- Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2024“What if our whole life—how we live and die—has already been decided for us?”
So this book gave off the creepy ominous vibes pretty early on and I was in love. I always find that I enjoy the academia type stories more than I anticipated and this one having tarot cards as the focus was really cool. I think what I enjoyed most about this one was that even though it had this supernatural element... the motivations were all so normal. Ambition, love, betrayal, power, envy, anger all of them played a crucial role of the story and the unfolding of events. Ann is very much motivated by her desire to be an academic and Rachel becomes someone she clings to and trusts because of the power she radiates.
Ann is very skeptical of the importance that Patrick places on the tarot cards at first but I love how we gradually see her perception shift, almost to fit her motives. The book really highlights the stark contrast between the idea of fate and choice and I loved the way it did. I have to say that at times the book felt like it was dragging just a bit and I really wanted some action to happen. I was a little disappointed that the tarot cards weren't providing a bit more of an occult element but like I can forgive it because of the way things played out.
The book really saved all its shock for the end. I have to admit that I didn't see the ending coming and I truly loved the shock reveals we got. I enjoyed all the ways that ambition and obsession played out in this story. I love that it kept the creepy vibes going the whole time but I feel like some elements could have been explored a bit more. Overall though it was a really good read and now I am on the search for more stories with tarot cards at the center.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2022Format: HardcoverVerified PurchaseAs I live a few blocks from the Cloisters, am a member there (via the Met), and visit there often, I try my best to read anything that uses the Cloisters as a setting. Somewhat surprisingly, this is actually the second novel I’ve read with the Cloisters as a key setting. Unfortunately, this novel is not nearly as engaging as James Carroll’s The Cloister.
In this novel, a young woman named Ann Stilwell comes from Washington to NYC with a degree in art and a summer job at the Met. On the verge of losing her job on day 1, she is scooped up by Patrick Roland, the curator of the Cloisters and begins working there. She becomes friends with associate curator Rachel Mondray and gardener Leo Bitburg. The art historians are working on a exhibition of tarot cards, and become enamored of the idea that divination with the cards is quite possible.
There are some good things here. There is the interesting fish-out-of-water experience of Ann trying to fit in with the artsy culture of NYC. The relationships Ann develops with Leo and, especially, Rachel are engaging in certain aspects. Also, unlike a number of novels I’ve read lately, this novel finishes strong, with some surprising, yet not outrageous, revelations.
The main word that comes to me when I think of this novel, however, is vague. This is its major problem. I was unhappy with her descriptions of the Cloisters. Despite knowing the place well, I couldn’t picture the spaces she was trying to describe. And was she restricted from naming the artwork on display there? The pieces she describes could be found in any museum and the Unicorn tapestries, which are the Cloisters most famous holdings, don’t even rate a mention. Worse, the movement towards a belief in the power of the tarot is almost completely undeveloped. There was nothing in the characterizations here that actually made me believe that the characters believed.
In the end, this book was a disappointment. I got the feeling that Ms. Hays had maybe visited the Cloisters once or twice but never got to know the place well. Her descriptions of the neighborhood in which I live lacked any kind of precision that would give the novel a feeling of place. Though the story is a fair one, there’s nothing about it that makes me think the Cloisters was where this novel had to take place.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2023Format: KindleVerified PurchaseAnyone who has ever spent decades searching for the perfect tarot deck that engulfs the heart in magic would have to like The Cloisters. Of Romani/Gypsy ancestry, my Gran started me on sketching my own deck at age 8 using woodchips scattered on the cellar floor from her husband’s woodworking. I continued it until marriage and later made another deck after menopause, but neither one invoked the necessary bonding I am still seeking in my old age. I will add that the Romani had what my Gran called the Drom Ek Romani (Way of One Gypsy) cards/wood chips centuries before the decks became popular during the Renaissance, but that is an oral tradition with no proof. I believe Katy Hays brilliantly tapped into the feelings upon discovering the deck that seems to reveal the secrets of life. And, anyone who has ever tried to break into academic life with a mere B.A. degree from a not-quite-right university would have to love the book and cheer on the main character, also portrayed in a wonderful way by Katy Hays. However, it has always been difficult for me to like a book if we discover that certain characters are morally flawed beyond our own standards, but I will not indulge in spoilers. The book is also special because it somehow morphs into a psychological thriller and a mystery and I found that to be a treat on so many levels. A five-star read, for me.
Top reviews from other countries
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Chiara BuschittariReviewed in Italy on October 31, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars Libro meraviglioso
Libro arrivato perfettamente, copertina meravigliosa, l'unica differenza rispetto a quanto visto in foto (ed è per questo che gli ho dato 4 stelle invece di 5) è la mancanza del/dei segnalibri visto/i nelle foto di presentazione del prodotto. Non è un elemento essenziale, ma mi sembrava giusto farlo presente.
Amazon velocissimo come sempre, ottimo servizio, personale sempre molto gentile.
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Edna PalatnikReviewed in Brazil on December 17, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Um mistério sutil
Format: HardcoverVerified PurchaseMuito bem escrito
- Arta BunetaReviewed in Germany on December 12, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars Almost excellent
Slow chapters aside, a perfect read.
- MarmarionReviewed in Canada on April 16, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting
Format: KindleVerified PurchaseHaving quite recently visited the Cloisters for the first time, I was drawn to this novel. It did prove to be a rewarding read, although I found the ending puzzling. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on the Tarot, a subject I have recently become enamored of. The characters were well-described and the plot caught my interest throughout. As the story reached its climax, I feared a conventional movie-type ending, but was pleasantly surprised. I anticipate Hays’ next novel.
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shadaynReviewed in France on March 11, 2025
3.0 out of 5 stars lecture en demie teinte
Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseJe ne sais pas quoi penser de cette lecture qui est un mélange entre contemporain et Dark Academia. Je n'ai ni aimé ni détesté. Je suis dans le flou total.
D'un côté, l'ambiance un peu mystérieuse, sombre donne envie de se plonger dans l'histoire et de l'autre le récit en lui-même est ennuyeux au possible. Il y a bien quelques passages qui éveillent la curiosité, les tarots anciens pour prédire l'avenir, l'endroit où se déroule le récit.
Concernant les personnages, Patrick était sympathique, Leo aussi. Moira et Michelle n'apparaissent pas assez pour que je m'en fasse une idée et les personnages secondaires sont tout de même intéressants. Quant à Rachel, dès le départ, je l'ai eu dans le nez. Sa façon de parler, ses actions, tout sentait la relation toxique à fuir. Elle est douée pour manipuler son monde et Ann est une cible facile car petite nouvelle et venant d'une autre ville.
Personnellement, je m'attendais à quelque chose de sombre allant sur une sorte d'enquête mystérieuse et au final ça finit en thriller mou et peu intéressant. C'est dommage, il y avait matière à faire quelque chose de plus prenant, on est resté en surface.
En conclusion, je reste sur ma faim avec cette histoire. Il y a du bon et du moins bon dans ce récit. Parfois, on est happé par un chapitre et après le soufflé redescend. Pour le niveau d'anglais, il est abordable et pour certains termes, pas de panique, les personnages l'explique, aucunement besoin d'un glossaire.