Genre: Dark Academia - Mystery/Thriller
Publication Date: November 1, 2022

Ann expects to be working the summer as an intern at the Met but there has been a mix-up. She would have found herself being unemployed if not for a timely meeting with the director of the Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden, where its workers are fascinated by divination. Ann, hardpress to pass up this opportunity, agrees and slowly finds herself descending into a dangerous game among the staff of the Cloisters. Will Ann become a player or a pawn?

I think it was the synopsis stating this book was the Secret History meets Ninth House that led me to believe there was some sort of element of fantasy or magic to it. I guess to a degree the tarot cards are magic but not enough to satisfy my fantasy loving self. The tarot cards are more of a motivation for characters to do what they did. Fans of mystery and thriller books will enjoy this one more than the average fantasy reader. 

For most of the novel I kept thinking Hays was really pushing the main character as the “different from other girls trope” and I just didn’t see it. She sounded insecure, lonely and sheltered (who isn't?) nothing truly “different” than anyone else. By the end of the book I saw Ann in an entirely different light. No, Ann was not like other girls… Talk about a plot twist!

I found the fact sharing about medieval tarot cards to be heavy and distracting at times, unless you’re really interested in the history of tarot cards. The mystery was what kept me turning pages. I needed vindication with respect to my suspicions and while they were mostly true, the book still managed to throw out some surprises along the way. 

I'm not really sure how to rate this one? So I settled on 3.5 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada and Atria Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Cloisters by Katy Hays is an exciting new dark academic book.
This book follows Ann Stilwell who, by chance, gets to work at a medieval museum in New York, The Cloisters, during the summer season. Specifically, she works with a woman named Rachel on tarot in the 15th century. The book gets darker as it goes along, as accidents start happening. Ultimately, this book is about fate and choice, and which really rules our lives.
I loved this book. The protagonist felt like a very real fish-out-of-water, desperate to fit in. The imagery in this book was awesome, I felt like I was really there. And while you could see the twists coming, they still managed to surprise you. I loved the messages the book talked about, both about fate vs. choice and also about women in academia. It doesn't cover this as closely, but there is a point made that if Ann Stilwell published an important new discovery, it would be attributed to the male curator, and at best she would merely be a coauthor. She would not get the fame and prestige.
All in all, I think this book was spectacular. I would recommend to people who like dark academia but from a fully adult point of view, and I would also recommend for people who are interested in history, specifically telling futures. However, this book does cover the loss of parents and friends, so I warn anyone who lost someone recently.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. When Ann starts working at The Cloisters, she meets Rachel who she seems to form a quick bond with, despite others telling her something is “off” with Rachel. When they start research on old tarot cards and fortune telling, reality between the arcane and modern starts to blur and Ann seems to be in a race to find out what is really going on. Couldn’t put this one down.

The Cloisters by Katy Hays is a dark academia tale, pulsing with guilt and glamour, murder and mystery, and choice and fate.

The arcane nature of this story–researchers trying to uncover a Renaissance secret involving Tarot cards, pulled me into its labyrinth, where danger and suspicion lurked behind every corner. The gothic atmosphere of The Cloisters was the perfect spooky setting that invoked an ancient energy almost as though something from long ago was attempting to be revived. It was hard not to feel the overwhelming effect of the medieval museum, causing a Stendhal syndrome for the characters. The Cloisters museum is the main character in this story as it served as both inspiration and obsession, a place where life and death converged in a disturbing yet beautiful way.

A Tarot storyline is exactly what the dark academia genre was missing. The occult and academic worlds weaved an intoxicating story about free will and destiny. Do we make our own choices or are they made for us? The characters in this story were attempting to study the true purpose of the cards but they learned it was not something that could be proven, only felt or experienced… much to their scholarly chagrin. The more they studied the cards, the deeper into its rabbit hole they were pulled, and the deeper the interior of The Cloisters became, so it was no longer a workplace, but a grotesque fortress of darkness and illumination. The museum forced the characters to confront themselves, an internal journey, like the Tarot. Along the way, each character met aspects of themselves that they would have preferred to stay in the shadows, and once the secret layers were pulled back, they learned just how delicate the weave of choice and fate was.

The gorgeous descriptions of the gilded tarot cards brought to mind the Visconti reproductions found on many shelves today and the rich architecture of the museum and its equally beguiling gardens was beautifully described. Ruthless scholars, moody settings, seductive shadowy characters, and a centuries old mystery will initiate readers into this esoteric world of dark glamour, Renaissance magic, and academic madness.

I highly recommend The Cloisters for fans of dark academia. You will not be able to put it down. Of course, it’s up to you to decide…or is it?