The Cloisters A Novel

In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel from the author of Saltwater, a circle of researchers uncovers 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 tour de force by an important new voice” (Rachel Kapelke-Dale, author of The Ballerinas), The Cloisters is a haunting and magical blend of genres that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Katy Hays is a writer and adjunct art history professor in California, where she teaches rural students from Truckee to Tecopa. She holds an MA in art history from Williams College and pursued her PhD at UC Berkeley. Having previously worked at major art institutions, including The Clark Art Institute and SF MoMA, she now lives with her husband and dog, Queso, in Olympic Valley, California. The Cloisters is her first novel.