The Cloisters

a dangerous mystery where the stakes are deadly

The Cloisters by Katy Hays had a great premise and such potential. I really enjoyed it, though there were some things standing in the way of it being genuinely great. Hays’ writing style flows and successfully builds suspense in this dark academia-adjacent unsettling mystery. I will be reading more of Katy Hays’ work in the future.

Ann, the main character, unexpectedly gets a summer research placement at The Cloisters museum in New York City, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and finds herself surrounded by a small but intense cohort of researchers. She becomes friends with Rachel, a beautiful and wealthy young woman who seemingly has everything. While researching the history of divination with Rachel, Ann discovers a near-ancient tarot deck which catapults her into a dangerous mystery where the stakes are deadly.

I really wanted to love this book, but something was missing. I thought the tarot deck would be more instrumental and unsettling in itself than it was – or at least than I thought it was. I was expecting it to be pivotal like the deck in All Our Hidden Gifts, but instead, it occasionally offered extra depth or foreshadowing. I usually am enthralled by complicated and slightly vicious friendships, but this one was not as compelling as some I have read (e.g. In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever). Overall, it is still a decent book, but I wish I had gelled better with it.