The Cloisters

The Secret History
meets Ninth House in this sinister, atmospheric novel following a circle of researchers as they uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.
Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.
A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Cloisters had me at ‘gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination’ but I’m afraid it stopped there. The book wasn’t bad, there were parts I liked, but unfortunately this was a ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ kind of situation. I think fans of dark academia will enjoy this one because it’s certainly that, but I wanted more of the gothic, sinister, and atmospheric story I was promised and feel didn’t get.

This book suffers a bit with its pacing and lack of depth. I appreciate a good slow burn but I struggled with The Cloisters because I simply couldn’t get behind the motivations of the characters. I wanted more depth to them and I just didn’t buy into why one character is so loved and revered, and the complicated relationship the main character had with everyone at the museum. A lot of time was spent with the characters and their relationship to each other (and less about academia/their research or tarot cards) and I just didn’t feel like it paid off. I did appreciate seeing the growing obsession in the story and was pleasantly surprised by the twist in the end.

Overall this ticks the box for dark academia with a dash of murder mystery elements, but if you’re expecting something magical with the tarot cards or feeling the gothic/sinister atmosphere, you may be disappointed.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Libro.fm for my ALC! All opinions my own.