The Cloisters
February 9, 2023 9:03 PM - Subscribe

In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel, a circle of researchers 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.

(blurb from the publisher's web site)
posted by gentlyepigrams (1 comment total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was algorithmically picked for me because I read a lot of genre fiction, I think, but it's the litfic take on genre. It has a definite touch of magic but it's hard to tell whether it's actual magic or just the psychological effects thereof. As someone who went to grad school in medieval history and would have given various teeth and limbs to go to The Cloisters as a research assistant (and enjoyed visiting the museum when I lived in NYC), I would have enjoyed it anyway but I didn't expect it to grab me as hard as it did.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:07 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


« Older Abbott Elementary: Valentine's...   |  The Simpsons: Bart the General... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments