The overall concept for this novel was really intriguing. I liked the dark academia aspect involving The Cloisters as it can be sometimes difficult to get dark academia outside of boarding schools when the plot takes place in America. I liked the use of Tarot cards as there is so much mystery and intrigue around them and they worked well with the storyline. The characters were were not entirely likeable but not entirely unlikeable as well, which worked for the plot. The plot, however, did drag and it did take a while to get through the story, or more to the point of the story.

This was a strange book. Parts were good but overall felt long and a bit boring then lost its way. Maybe her next one will be better. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher!

I had the pleasure of diving into The Cloisters, a mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. The author's storytelling and ability to create suspense had me hooked from the very first page. The characters were well-developed, each with their own secrets and motivations, adding depth to the plot. The pacing was perfect, making it hard to put the book down once I started reading. Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good read filled with suspense, mystery, and unexpected surprises. It's a must-read for fans of the genre!

"The Cloisters" is a captivating read that immerses readers in a world of mystery and intrigue. From the atmospheric setting to the well-developed characters, every aspect of the story kept me engaged from start to finish. With its blend of historical fiction and mystery, this book is sure to appeal to a wide range of readers. Overall, I highly recommend "The Cloisters" for an enjoyable and compelling literary journey.

A quick read that loses steam once a death occurs, making the lack of characterization obvious.

I found the artistic/tarot card mystery more compelling than the who-dunnit mystery that takes up most of the latter half of the book. The art history aspects shined in this story, and as we got away from that, the writing felt rote and unsurprising.

My main gripe is with characterization. The main character, Ann, is drawn with barely any personality, only developing some sense of agency (and cynicism) at the very very end. This comes as a shock, as almost no time is spent in any serious way developing Ann’s personality or showing how she changes because of her whirlwind summer. It all felt very surface-level and unsatisfying. Admittedly, I skimmed the last third of the novel, just wanting it to be done by that point.

More of a 2.5 star.

This book was a RIDE. It was eerie and suspenseful and just plain old mind blowing at times. You just would get little tickles in your brain of what could possibly be going on and everything just came exploding out at you. Occultish and Gothic - this book will utterly mesmerize you from the first page. I really can't wait for what this author does next.

gonna say i loooveeeee the met cloisters. the atmosphere in there is so insanely gorgeous. this book does well capturing that i think

Ann Stilwell is a budding art historian, and arrives in New York with a prized internship at The Met. However, due to a mix-up, she is recruited to work at The Cloisters a museum of the Middle Ages. There she finds a group of researchers, and her boss among them, who are obsessed with the mystical in Italy of the Middle Ages—particularly of Tarot. Things start to go wrong when Ann finds a mysterious deck of Tarot cards that are at the center of a dangerous plot.

This was an interesting book—I was drawn to it because I love The Cloisters and visit it regularly. That being said, the book was really overwrought with a lot of leaps of logic and unrealistic scenarios that an inexperienced art historian intern would never find herself in. But I went along with it and it was fun, a twisty romp through one of my favorite places in New York.

✨ Review ✨ The Cloisters by Katy Hays

This one had a lot of mixed reviews so I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it, but I really enjoyed it. -- I binged 90% of it in one sitting!

Read this if you like:
⭕️ Dark academia and Gothic museums
⭕️ early Renaissance & medieval art
⭕️ Tarot and efforts to divine the future

Ann heads off to NYC to work at the Met for the summer, but ends up placed at the Cloisters, a Gothic Museum on the north end of the city instead. She works closely with Patrick, the curator, and Rachel, another intern, on researching whether 15th-century Italians were using tarot cards to divine the future.

Filled with messy relationships and intrigue, Ann finds herself mixed up in a bigger battle for power and intellectual control. The book definitely places academia as the ultimate goal in a way that can be off-putting, and a lot of the characters aren't especially likable, but I thought it was the perfect quick binge as fall approaches! I loved the museum setting and the emphasis on tarot. While also it might move way too slow for some, I thought it made Ann and Rachel's research feel appropriately like a slog, which a lot of fiction speeds up to the easy research finds to keep the story moving. I appreciated that it let things move more slowly!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(4.25 stars)
Genre: thriller/mystery, dark academia
Setting: NYC at the Cloisters
Pub Date: 2022

Thanks to Atria and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

This book blew me away. I loved the blur of fact and fiction of the actual Cloisters in NY and how much this book/story reminded me The Secret History. It was full of twists and turns and I raced through to the end. I will highly recommend this one.

DNF, unfortunately. The atmosphere of the book is intense and intriguing, but the characters didn't engage me. Still, a wonderful look inside one of New York's most beautiful landmarks, and a welcome addition to the world of fictional academia!

As a lifelong New Yorker, the Cloisters is one of the best-kept museum secrets, tucked way way away on the upper west side. This book does a marvelous job of making them come alive, with a central mystery that adds to the flavor.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

Ann Stilwell dreams of leaving her small town in eastern Washington and moving to New York City and makes that happen after graduating from college. She’s offered a job at The Cloisters, a museum dedicated to the art of the Middle Ages. Her coworkers all seem to have secrets and share a fascination with the occult, and Ann may have entered a world that is more than she was ready for.

I was completely invested in this novel and the atmospheric writing. There was drama in unraveling where each of these characters loyalties lie, and how the past would catch up with each of them. I was hoping for a bigger reveal in the end, but I enjoyed it.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hays knocked it out of the park with this one. Absolutely loved it! I can't wait to see what else she comes up with.

The Cloisters was a good fast paced book with a little mystery. The only thing I would have liked is if the author had gone more into the tarot cards. I feel like it was a part of it but could have played a bigger part .

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

There is such an amazing tone and feel to this very Gothic novel. Set in The Cloisters in New York, Ann is a scholar who lands a dream summer job as an archivist there. She quickly becomes entangled with her coworker Rachel and drama in the department, as they set out to find a groundbreaking historical discovery centered around tarot cards.

This is not a fast-paced, busy book, but it is a character study full of moods and atmosphere. There's romance, friendship, intrigue, academia, and interesting twists near the end that will make you question all of the characters. I didn't want to put this down.

The Cloisters is the dark academic fantasy debut from author Katy Hays. Released 1st Nov 2022 by Simon & Schuster on their Atria imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out from the same publisher in July 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats. It's especially handy in this case for finding character and historical artist/artwork names quickly in the text.

This was definitely one of the "it" books for 2022, and it is a compelling and interestingly complex story. Real places and actual historical events provide the scaffolding for a story of fantasy, conspiracy, and paranormal inescapable dark fate. The whole narrative has a distinctly edgy Gothic vibe and readers will find themselves tensing up for jump scares which mostly don't materialize.

The character driven narrative is meticulously and lushly imagined, and more impatient readers (who aren't art history nerds already) will want to bring copious amounts of patience, or resign themselves to slogging through the minutiae including botany, art history, tarot, and the intrigues inherent to medieval and renaissance court life.

The unabridged audiobook version has a run time of 10 hours and 16 minutes and is well narrated by Emily Tremaine. She has a neutral East Coast US accent and is easy to listen to. There are some slight difficulties with the broad range of non-US accents of some of the academic characters, but overall, she does a good job with both male and female characters of a variety of ages. Sound and production quality are high throughout the recording.

Four stars, for readers who enjoy labyrinthine stories.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I chose to read The Cloisters by Katy Hays for three reasons. First, when we travel through NYC we avoid traffic by going up the other side of the Hudson River. From one of the lookouts there is a plaque that lists the sights that are visible across the river and The Cloisters was one of them. Next, the book description mentioned that Tarot cards were going to play a part in the plot. Lastly, the plot sounded like it would be a suspense story with maybe an occult-ish vibe.

It turned out to meet my expectations. I learned a lot about The Cloisters and I've added a link to the site of this museum for those who might want to check it out if they get in the area. Tarot cards are one of the major plot drivers the other threads wind around. As to the occult magical aspect, I never could quite decide just how real it was supposed to be taken since it fed the plot but was never clearly real or imaginary to the characters.

The story is from the point of view of Ann Stilwell, who managed to get an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She hoped she could do well enough to get recommendations to get into a good graduate program. Since the college she attended was a small local liberal arts school with a decent reputation she hope this summer placement would give her a chance. However, she arrived in New York City, moved into her apartment, reported for orientation, and learned the position was no longer available. Luckily, she was picked up to work at The Cloisters on a research project that was related to her studies. It seemed almost too good to be true. From her first day at The Cloisters, she can't believe her good luck. This was exactly the type of work she always wanted to do.

However, it doesn't take long for readers to get the feeling that things are not quite as they seem, even though we're going on Ann's thoughts. Ann feels she is finally in control of her life but, even looking at it from her view, it seems she's being manipulated to some degree—or maybe this reviewer is overly suspicious.

The plotting is very tight and information seems to be all out in the open but over and over there are twists that change the whole way the events and people should be viewed. Who can Ann trust? Can we, the reader, trust Ann? What is going on? Or, is everything just as it is portrayed? The author even pulls the rug out from under the reader in the last chapter—so do not ever look ahead.

I haven't read such a twisty, convoluted, and engrossing story in a while. Things move a bit slowly at first setting it all up but then things get very interesting.

An eery, mystical story that had me intrigued from the first chapter, The Cloisters is a gripping story that will have you turning the pages just to see what happens.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.