Ann Stilwell is an outsider. Educated at a small liberal arts college in East Washington, she has not been able to secure a doctoral place in her chosen subject of medieval art. However she has managed to get a summer placement in New York. Sent to 'The Cloisters', Ann is put to work on a project around the use of tarot cards in medieval Italy, a project that brings her into the orbit of the sexually alluring Leo and the rich heiress Rachel.
For a relatively short novel, there is a lot here. As a great fan of the medieval and having visited the Cloisters several times I was hooked from the start. The book has been described as a modern version of 'The Secret History' and I can seen that as an influence. At its best the writing is mesmeric. My only quibble is that there is a lot shoehorned in here and the twisty nature of the final section is sometimes a little lost.

I love books about academia and obsessions, and this one was a very clever and engrossing combination of mystery, compelling characters and tarot. Eager to leave her life behind her, Ann Stillwell is spending summer working in a prestigious gothic museum and garden called The Cloisters, renowned for its medieval and Renaissance collections. Her co-workers, curator Patrick and a fellow researcher Rachel are charismatic, but seem to be fixated on finding a link between tarot and Italian Renaissance. This is a book full of secrets and tragedies, with the heady summer weather creating an atmosphere of tension and obsession. I loved the setting of the book in a beautiful museum, the art references, and especially the fact that the author wrote about tarot – it was a perfect blend of fascinating history and secrets. I loved the characters too, and Rachel was a particularly engrossing character, but the story did not go the way I expected. It was darker and more sinister in places than I imagined, a gripping and delightfully evocative read.

I wanted this to give me The Secret History vibes but I struggled to get fully immersed in the story. It was a good read and I enjoyed it, but it didn't quite meet my expectations.

I was disappointed with this book. The tagline had me hooked, thinking this would be filled with death and mystery, however, I found it long and boring. It only got interesting 200 pages in with the first murder. The ending was great, but really, all the preamble to get there was a bit of a drudge to get through.

A gorgeous book for dark academia fans who love The Secret History and Ninth House. Had me gripped the whole way through and loved how it ended!

I was so disappointed in this

This book was in my top 5 anticipated reads and 14% of the way in I’m bored, nothing is happening, I feel like the author writes like we should already have this connection and background knowledge of the characters and it’s just a bunch of random information and thoughts thrown at the reader

For such a fabulous premise it has poor execution

I was drawn to this book because it was billed as a new Secret History - I should have known better. Donna Tartt's The Secret History was a tour de force, one of a kind. The Cloisters would very much like to be one too, but it falls woefully short.

The setting, the Cloisters of the title, is a museum in New York dealing with medieval and Renaissance art and artefacts. Ann Stillwell is a gauche young post-doc from a small Washington town, freshly arrived in New York for a summer residency at the Met. When this falls through, she is snapped up, apparently serendipitously, by the Cloisters' curator Patrick Roland. Patrick and his perfectly poised, universally popular assistant Rachel are researching the history of tarot cards, convinced that their use as a means of telling the future goes back much further than documented history allows.

What follows is a would-be gothic tale aiming to make us question the idea of predestination - is our future really all laid out, for those who know how to read the cards? Are all our decisions just playing into the hand of Fate? Unfortunately, for me it all just fell flat. Maybe because I just find this central question so preposterous, but a more skilled author should have been able to make me suspend my disbelief. Maybe because I didn't find any of the characters either compelling or convincingly drawn. Maybe because I saw the twist in the tale coming from a mile off, and I'm generally absolutely hopeless at spotting twists in a mystery. Maybe because the writing style is plodding, too much telling and not enough showing. I just found this a boring slog, and I will not be recommending it to anyone.

Beautifully written and so well-paced, The Cloisters is perfect for fans of dark academia and complex friendships. The characters are really well developed and I found myself completely drawn into the story. Katy Hays' writing is visceral and immediate, with a physicality to it that contrasts beautifully with the subject matter.

4.5*

The Cloisters is a dark, atmospheric and mysterious book which I think has potential to be one of the next great dark academia titles.

We follow Ann during her summer internship at The Cloisters, an exclusive and close-knit museum in New York, the complicated tangle of relationships she develops with her colleagues Rachel and Leo and her mentor Patrick, and the mystery of fate and morality as the summer slips away.

I really loved the setting of this, and was pleasantly surprised to realise The Cloisters are a real museum! They're absolutely stunning and make the perfect backdrop for this book. I also appreciated that this really digs into the "academia" part of dark academia, detailing research and papers and a lot of things other DA books tend to skim over, which is a shame since I find it so interesting! A lot of the research in this book hinges on the mystery of tarot decks and fortune reading, and the historian in me loved learning!

While the pacing of the book was not as well refined as it could have been, I didn't find it to be too much of a problem as I enjoyed the plot, especially the way several threads come together at the end, I found it ultimately really satisfying.

Ultimately though, I think the contentious point in this book will be the characters. None of them are particularly likeable, and all are complex with their own senses of morality and their own goals. I found them all so compelling, in particular the ever enigmatic Rachel, who remained a wonderfully written and complicated character the whole way through. Her and Ann's friendship was very believable, especially Ann's feelings as she slowly comes to realise it's a manipulation - but one she needed.

I loved the history in this. It put the academia in dark academia. It just created the perfect blend of dark twisted happenings and the study of tarot. I don't know how much of the tarot history was legit, but it sounded good and was really interesting to read about.

I wasn't quickly endeared to the character, but I wanted her to succeed, especially because her descriptions of Rachel were really gay for a book with a hetero sexual relationship. I was interested in their relationship as well as the relationship with Leo. There's something about toxic friendships that really pulls you in a gets you reading.

All in all, it was the atmosphere that really sold this for me. I could really feel how it would be to work at the cloisters and the energy of the tarot.

to start, thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC for review<3

much like the way the tarot cards unexpectedly and inescapably drew Ann in, this book captured me in a way that I honestly didn’t expect. going into it, I knew it was something I’d enjoy, but it exceeded my expectations.

the writing was exciting and beautifully done, and I felt that the twists and turns were placed so perfectly and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. at a glance, the ‘side’ characters (patrick, rachel, leo) can appear to be two dimensional, but for me, it only added to the mystery of it all and whilst I read, I couldn’t stop theorising about the true nature of this quaint group of people and how they became so intertwined.

I absolutely love reading up about tarot and anything witchy, so I was instantly captivated, and continued to be as the plot developed and countless secrets began to unravel. I kind of wish that we had some more insight into the characters a little earlier on or a bit more clarity, but I suppose in the end it just added to the magical mystery of the book!

this is definitely something I’d recommend for lovers of gothic, dark academia who also enjoy a little bit of a thriller/crime aspect mixed in!

I did enjoy reading this book, it as beautifully written with a very strong sense of atmosphere. The beautifully described Cloister sounded wonderful and the ability to be drawn into that atmosphere quite understandable.
The characters were quite odd and really I never felt that I understood any one of them. Patrick seemed to have a ghost-like quality and Rachel, far too many dimensions to her to be clear at all. Ann did seem to be a curious character who seems to have little idea of where she was going in life yet with a burning ambition. Everyone seemed to live on fresh air as they never seemed to need food.
However it was a good read

This review has been posted on Waterstones

I quite liked this but it my oh my it dragged on a bit. I loved the descriptions of The Cloisters itself, the gardens and plants. I found the history within it interesting and original, but the actual plot got a bit overwhelmed by everything.

I wanted to love this and really enjoyed the start. Great descriptions of the buildings but the storyline just failed to grab me and I found myself feeling uninvolved with the characters.

A coming-of-age story with a dark undercurrent reminiscent of The Secret History.
Ann Stilwell has moved to New York to take up a research post. Upon her arrival she learns the post no longer exists, but a chance meeting sees her seconded to The Cloisters, a gothic museum. Under the tutelage of the curator, Patrick, Ann is tasked with research. What she is looking for is not immediately apparent, but it is linked to ideas about fortune and fate.
Drawn slowly into the world, it’s evident that nobody is quite what they seem. Ann’s academic curiosity soon becomes obsessive. She is warned about Rachel, the graduate who takes her under her wing. But it soon becomes clear that Ann is not quite the naive ingénue she depicts herself as.
A slow burner. The atmosphere builds slowly, developing in a very unexpected way.
I’m grateful to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this prior to publication and look forward to sampling more by this debut author.

I usually love things that are dark academia - however, I have a tendency to compare everything to the Secret History which I love!

I found this was a good read- a curious professor, an exclusive “club” and an elusive “friend”. However, I found the other girl to be written in a way that was just too elusive to try to make that character more interesting. I found it hard to connect to.

Atmospheric and addictive, this is dark academia at its finest. A compelling protagonist, and a plot which keeps you guessing, this novel takes all of the necessities of the genre — lethal subterfuge, occultist tropes, morally grey male deuteragonists, an enthralling female rival — but without any of the “easy guess” plot stereotypes. Each time you think you’ve figured it out, Hays superbly subverts the reader’s expectations.

I can’t wait for her next novel!

‘The Cloisters’ follows Ann, who finds herself on a graduate placement at The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As Ann finds her feet, she meets a number of enigmatic colleagues, Patrick, Rachel and Leo, all outwardly welcoming but also somewhat secretive. As her research project into Renaissance fortune telling progresses, so do her relationships with Rachel and Leo, leading Ann down a path and into a deadly web from which she may not be able to escape…

I really love this kind of book. It falls into the ‘dark academia’ genre, and can most certainly hold its own standing alongside the now-classic ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt and, a more recent favourite of mine, ‘The Betrayals’ by Bridget Collins.

The setting is fantastic. I was particularly drawn to the descriptions of the museum, its collections of medieval art and architecture, its gardens and its library. I wasn't aware until finishing the book that The Cloisters was a real place but, upon seeing photos of the gardens, it was exactly as I imagined it; testimony to the author's skill.

Katy Hays also does an excellent job of making the reader feel claustrophobic. From Ann wanting to escape her small home town, to the close heat of New York, to the maze of a museum and the walled cloisters themselves. Even when Ann manages to find space, for example in Rachel’s apartment, there is still the sensation of her being like an insect trapped in amber.

At times it feels like Ann is the victim of a toxic friendship with Rachel but, as the novel progresses, we find that this may not quite be the case and that her ambition burns just as strongly as her friend's. It was this plot line, as much as the one about the tarot cards, that really had me hooked and delivered an incredible conclusion to a remarkable novel.

I am inordinately grateful to the publishers and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of ‘The Cloisters’ in return for this review.

‘If Death was in the cards, would you want to know?’ - cover tag line.

My thanks to Random House U.K. Transworld Publishers Bantam Press for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Cloisters’ by Katy Hays.

The main character and narrator of this debut novel is Ann Stilwell, who arrives in New York City with hopes of spending her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden that houses important medieval and Renaissance collections. Like many impressionable fictional graduates before her, Ann is drawn to an elite circle of academics who are caught up in power games and toxic relationships.

The leader of the group is the museum's curator, Patrick Roland, who is convinced that the history of the Tarot holds an important key to unlock secrets. Ann is eager to leave her past behind as well as to gain the approval of Patrick and her new colleagues. Then she makes a discovery of her own that changes everything. No further details to avoid spoilers.

Novels that feature the Tarot and Renaissance esotericism are always a draw for me. So given its themes, including a mysterious 15th Century Tarot deck, ‘The Cloisters’ should have been totally my cup of tea.

However, despite the intriguing premise, atmospheric setting, and stunning cover art, I struggled to feel a sense of connection with the novel, especially its characters. Perhaps it was partly Ann’s scepticism, though I understand how that attitude would be relatable to most readers.

Overall, I found ‘The Cloisters’ well written with great attention to detail, especially to the practices associated with museum curation and art history. It was a slow burn though did pick up as it progressed towards the conclusion. Despite these qualities and my enthusiasm for its subject matter, it remained for me an okay read rather than firing up my enthusiasm on a deeper level.

An atmospheric, slow burn story of one summer, a research project gone wrong and a girl looking for her place among the exhibits at the Cloisters museum.

I've actually enjoyed this book - I liked the dark atmosphere, I liked all the morally gray, mysterious characters working at the museum, and I liked the development of the main character, Rachel. The main mystery took time to take shape, but I didn't mind it. I enjoyed being in Rachel's head, slowly peeling off the layers of the people, connections and agendas everyone had at the Cloisters, understanding them better and better, and gradually seeing Rachel in a new light as well. It was a solid, creeping, mysterious story and I'd definitely recommend it.