QUICK TAKE: I don't think dark academia is really a genre for me. I struggled with this one, and it ultimately wasn't for me.

This didn't quite live up to the hype for me. I liked it well enough but the murder mystery part is lacking. I would have like to see more information about the history and reliability of tarot cards. The characters were well drawn but the plot fell short. I would read more from this author.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

The Cloisters by Katy Hays is the perfect "dark academia" read to add to your TBR for the fall. The lead character, Ann, is offered a chance to intern for the summer at The Met. Once arriving in NYC, Ann is assigned to a gothic museum called The Cloisters. Ann finds a deck of tarot cards that may help predict the future--thus sending her into a whirlwind of looking for answers. This was a wonderful book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced e-galley.

I love a good deal academia book! And this one hit the spot… intrigue, history, dark magic, folklore, mythology! I was hooked from the first sentence, and gripped until the very end. Katy Hays perfectly walked the balance of nuance and detail to add richness to the story while not dragging it down. The characters were just shy of unlikable (Patrick, Leo, Rachel) while you rooted for Ann, the classic anti-hero.

The book opens with our main character Ann Stilwell ruminating on death - not her first brush with it - but we don’t know who it is. It’s the end of summer, a sultry summer spent as a curatorial assistant at The Cloisters in New York City. She’s pondering if she should have seen it all - everything that happened that summer - coming from the start. Whether it was all fated. Predestined. As we rewind to the beginning of the summer, we see everything happen and how the pieces all come together. How the position at The Met falls through upon her arrival to NYC from Eastern Washington and she lucks into an opening at The Cloisters. How she falls under the spell of Rachel Mondray, another assistant, and Patrick Roland, the curator, with their research on tarot and divination. How she’s drawn to the gardener for The Cloisters, Leo. Her burgeoning relationship with Leo and her intense friendship with Rachel. Rachel with her own dark past. Ann’s own obsession with fate and the tarot cards. And we’re left questioning if it all happened by the hand of a greater power or someone closer to home with an ulterior motive.

Katy Hays has written the perfect book to curl up with and get lost for a day. When Ann leaves her hometown for New York expecting a summer working at The Met, she ends up at The Cloisters where things aren’t quite as they seem. She is soon swept up in a world of Tarot and finding the deeper meaning, if any, behind what feels like a big discovery in the making.
Entangled relationships, rare art, murder? It’s all in the cards.

The Cloisters was such a moody, atmospheric and delightful novel. I absolutely LOVED this one. I haven’t read many books about tarot so this was a really unique book for me and left me very intrigued for more! I looooved reading some history about The Cloisters, the poison garden and mixed in with a murder mystery? Absolutely perfect. The best fall/winter read!

I liked the story and the writing and the settings and the characters but I guess I was expecting something else to happen in the story. It was my fault for thinking the plot was one thing and it turned out to be something completely different. I will recommend this title to others .I liked the story and the writing and the settings and the characters but I guess I was expecting something else to happen in the story. It was my fault for thinking the plot was one thing and it turned out to be something completely different. I will recommend this title to others .

New York City, The Cloisters, magic, dark academia? Sign me up!
Except, I struggled with this book. I was annoyed with the main character, Ann, A LOT. The toxic relationship between Ann and Rachel, the way Ann seemingly never stands up for herself and lack of personality, how all the characters were awful people.
I just struggled. I really wanted to love this book.

Count me among the readers who tried in earnest to get into the story, but ended up skipping to the end. Slow build up with no characters I liked.

I loved the premise of the story, and the cover is intriguing, however, the story dragged for me. I also didn't care for any of the characters. They all seemed selfish, shallow, and self-centered. I was hoping for more about the tarot cards also. I did like the descriptive way we learn about The Cloisters Museum; it made you feel like you were right there. The author did a great job with that.

Debates about what controls our destiny have existed for centuries. Is it all predestined, a map drawn by a divine cartographer? Or do we chart our own course through life with the choices we make (or avoid)?

Do we tell our rational selves it’s free will that guides us even as our superstitious spirits suspect Fate’s hand is on the wheel?

Ann Stilwell, a recently-graduated naïf from Washington state, intentionally (or was it pre-ordained?) leaves behind a dead-end life and chases her Renaissance Art dreams cross-country to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All seems lost when her arranged internship falls through, until the curator of The Cloisters asks her to assist him with his work on medieval astrology and divination (ooh, gotta be Fate!).

Paired with superstar intern Rachel Mondray, Ann finds herself drawn into the insular world of the medieval museum. The research, focused on antique tarot cards, quickly consumes her. The friendship with ultra-wealthy Rachel thrills and delights her, as does her relationship with bad-boy gardener Leo. The life she always wanted is finally within reach…

But the cards say otherwise. And is Ann strong enough to wrest control of her future away from the path Fortune has paved for her?

Fans of dark academia will eat this atmospheric novel up. Katy Hays knows the world she writes about and her details immerse the reader. Pro tip: keep your browser open to pull up images of the art and architecture of The Cloisters museum and gardens as you encounter references. Fascinating!

The Cloisters is in your cards if you:
- loved The Secret History for its mood and erudition
- loved The Da Vinci Code for its art and intrigue
- loved The Immortalists for its examination of fate vs. free will

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC!

Everyone has secrets. Some should never be told or foretold, in this case by tarot cards. Ann Stilwell is looking forward to her summer escape interning in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Due to a mix up she is reassigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum home and gardens. There she joins the director and his assistant in researching the history of Divination, the art of Tarot. Ann is willing to join in their research to secure her place at the Cloisters. However, the deeper she dives into the research of tarot and discovers the secrets of her colleagues, she realizes perhaps she does have the ambition it takes to move forward and away from her own dark past.

Thank you to atria books for this digital ARC! I was so excited when I first heard about this book and the cover is stunning! I started thinking it could be one of my favorites of the year, but that was not the case. It started off strong, and I was super interested. But then it began to drag. I could find any and every excuse to not pick up my book because it was such a snooze to me. I’m not sure where it went wrong exactly! I feel like it could have been a big hit! So sad that this didn’t work for me!

Ann Stilwell wants nothing more than to escape her hometown of Walla Walla, but thanks to her unique choice of studying at college, she struggles to find anywhere to accept her, that is until she receives an offer to work as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But things don't always go to plan and instead Ann finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for it's medieval art collection. Ann, desperate to escape her painful past, is quickly enamoured with The Cloisters and the people who work there, and quickly finds herself drawn into their research on Tarot and divination. Ann wouldn't necessarily call herself a believer, but after her first time reading cards, she can't deny there is a certain kind of magic to it, so when she discovers a deck that might hold the key to predicting the future, she isn't sure whether she wants to share it with the other researchers or keep what she's found to herself. The Cloisters is filled with ambitious people skilled in the arts of deception, seduction, and Ann quickly finds herself locked in a battle between reality and the arcane.

Ann is a character you can't help but empathise with. Someone who wants to escape their tragic past, to leave their hometown behind and start afresh somewhere new. She's a deeply complicated character, in some ways so incredibly naive and in others duplicitous and self-interested. On entering The Cloisters she quickly finds herself in a world she could never envision herself in, a world of seduction, of deception and ambition, a world where meek Ann from Walla Walla feels slightly in over her head. Her need to be included, to feel like she belongs with this group of people makes her somewhat of an unreliable narrator, mainly because she is never willing to see what's right in front of her, and because of that we spend the majority of the story unsure who we can trust. Who is actually Ann's friend, and who is using her for their own ambition, for her own naivety.

Our side characters are kept as quite a close knit group, which in turn adds to the allurement of the story. We feel, though Ann, that we get a deeper insight into them. Leo, the gardener whose seduction Ann would quite like to fall under. Patrick, the curator for The Cloisters who picked Ann out of seeming obscurity to work there and who fills her with both anticipation and uneasiness whenever he is around. And Rachel, someone so effortlessly captivating, she has everything that Ann wants & she is everything Ann wants to become. There are other characters dotted throughout, some that add to the danger & mystery of the story, and others to give us a better understanding of our main cast, but Hays keep's it incredibly small, which means we get a better awareness of all of them.

It's easy to see that this book is written by someone who has studied in the field for a significant period of time. Hays has certainly done her research into Tarot and the arcane for this story and it absolutely shows. The depth we get, not just of characters, but of information, of art and research and history all adds to the intriguing darkness filled story line. We see how easy it is to become obsessed with something that has taken up such a large portion of your life, but also how that obsession and ambition bleeds into those around you. It's the perfect Dark Academia read, and Hays uses the research into the Arcane, Ann's almost belief that the Tarot can indeed predict the future, to bring the perfect balance of magic and mundane to the story.

If there was one word I could use to sum up this story it would be seductive. Everything about it from the story line, the characters, setting & the writing is incredibly alluring, and it's easy to find yourself drawn into the pages, unable to put the book down. Hays writing style brings The Cloisters in all it's gothic beauty to life, making it almost a character in it's own right, and it's hard not to feel drawn to the place, especially viewing it through the eyes if Ann who is captivated by it, not just by it's beauty, but it's danger and darkness. Hays manages to bring a heightened sense of danger, of anticipation of what is to come, and this shows, not only in the more tense scenes, but even the more mundane ones. It's not a fast read, but you feel as though you are constantly on edge whilst reading, always watching, waiting for something to happen, and that means that, though the story is of a slower pace, you find it incredibly hard to stop reading at any point.

I adored this story. Hays prose blew me away and I can't tell you how many sections of the book I highlighted because the writing was just *chefs kiss.* The story line was intense, and managed to keep that intensity through even the more mundane scenes which is something I rarely see. If you enjoy books with complicated characters, plot twists, just the right amount of magic and a story that will keep you hooked from page one, you need to add this one to your TBR's immediately! I can't wait to see what the author has in store for us next.

This is a wicked, ingenious, and deliciously shocking ride of a story. Great characterizations and and absolutely awful/wonderful/crazy plot. So, so good!

The Cloisters starts out strong with Ann, a recent college grad, coming to New York and being hired to work at The Cloisters as a research assistant. She is quickly pulled into the internal drama there which features Patrick the director, Rachel the primary assistant, and Leo, the attractive and mysterious gardener.

Ann is from a small town in Washington and is fleeing the recent death of her father. Looking for a new start, she dives into life in New York and is almost immediately caught up in Patrick's obsessive quest to find a specific tarot deck. Ann can't quite figure out the relationship between the other three is, but finds herself physically attracted to the enigmatic Leo, and feels a kinship with Rachel, the wealthy, tragic orphan who is an up and coming star in academics. Before long, shady deals are being made, Rachel and Leo are fighting over her, one person is dead, and Ann doesn't know who to trust, including herself.

At the beginning, this book is exactly as presented; a brainy mystery in the secret world of academia. While Ann's constant self-doubt wears a bit, she is still a mostly likeable character. We know Rachel cannot be trusted and her borderline obsession with Ann is disconcerting. Leo is a complete mystery, and Patrick turns out to be nothing more than ambitious. Hays does a pretty good job of keeping all the characters and plot lines together, and the book comes to a mostly anticipated conclusion.

Except for the final twist at the end regarding Ann. For this to work, we needed to see more about Ann before New York and specifically about her father's death. We need to see what it takes to make this ending feasible, because right now, it's not. The twist feels like either a last-minute idea or an under-executed plan. Either way, it really brought the book down in my estimation.

Overall, a good first effort. With time and stronger editing, her next book should be good.

"The Cloisters" is a smart and atmospheric novel blending the genre of magical realism and dark academia. Our heroine, Ann, is invited to work at the Cloisters one summer researching medieval tarot cards. She finds out that her coworkers may be taking the dark arts a bit too seriously as she struggles to discern reality from fiction. All of the ingredients are present to make up a great read: solid writing, unique and captivating plot, great explanation of historical concepts and events. Unfortunately, I felt like there was a lot of buildup in the first half that never culminated in anything surprising or even that spooky. Besides one particular event befalling one of the main characters, I coasted right through to the last page feeling like it resolved exactly the way I thought it would. Turned out to be fairly slow, with the 3 characters putzing about for most of it.

The Cloisters is the the sort of novel that keeps readers thinking long after turning the last page. There are so many twists and turns, and endings possible, and yet the ending, when it appears, seems inevitable. In The Cloisters, Katy Hays creates a novel that is a maze of contradictions, many of which will catch the reader by surprise.

There are four central characters in The Cloisters, none of whom are quite what they seem. It is the unfolding of their histories that helps to lay the trap for each of them. The reader must decide what is choice and what is destiny, and is it possible to manipulate both choice and destiny to fit an agenda. The focus on fate seems like a piece of a larger theme, and yet, it is anything but. As mysteries continue to develop, the tarot cards will take on a life of their own, one far in excess of their reality. Are tarot cards depicting fate or are they inspiring ideas that people confuse with fate? Hays lets the reader answer that question.

The role of academia, the artificiality of academic life as Hays describes it, and the use of graduate students in both sexual and research roles is very true to life. The plot of The Cloisters is multi-layered and complex, which is a significant part of why readers will either love it or despair that they are missing something important. And yet, the basic conflict between good and evil and whether we choose one of the other or they choose the characters is, in actuality, the central plot device in The Cloisters. Katy Hays is a first time novelist, but given the complexity of The Cloisters, she is destined for for a long career writing novels.

I thank the author and the publisher for providing this ARC for me to read and review. The above comments are my honest review of The Cloisters. Thank you also to NetGalley for suggesting this ARC for me to read.

The Cloisters is a moody, atmospheric novel rooted in the Met Cloisters - a gothic museum and garden housing medieval art and deadly plants. Ann Stilwell leaves her small Washington town eager to join the Met as a curatorial assistant but upon arrival finds that the professor she was supposed to be assisting is off on a summer sabbatical. Patrick, the curator at the Cloisters who happens to be in the room as she is getting the news, scoops her up and brings her over to the team. Their work and style is different than she expected - her other team members, Rachel and Leo, are as mysterious as they are welcoming. Ann starts to notice that certain things aren't adding up but embraces the oddities and leans in. What follows is truly surprising!

This was a super dark read and the twist felt like it slowly tiptoed in. I enjoyed it but wish it went even further - I felt like some of the pieces didn't fully connect for me and once the chaos was in full swing it felt too surprising. That being said, I guessed who was responsible for everything from the beginning but that did not impact my reading experience. Overall this was an incredibly enjoyable story with lush settings and characters. I haven't read many books like it!

The Cloisters is out now! Perfect for book clubs as I'm sure many will have different opinions + anyone who loves the dark academia vibe. Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the ARC - The Cloisters is out now!

Delighted to include this title in the November edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction, for the Books section of Zoomer magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)