THE CLOISTERS

5 stars out of 5

This one hooked me from the first chapter and didn't let go till I'd finished. It's not that it was edge-of-seat action, it's just that the subject matter is super-entertaining - the history of divination with emphasis on tarot cards - and the story is well-written. The conclusion is far less a big surprise than a, well, it couldn't/shouldn't have ended any other way finale.

Ann Stilwell traded a troubled past in Walla Walla, Washington, for a chance to spend the summer working as a sort of curator intern at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Circumstances beyond her control changed where she would spend her time - instead at The Cloisters, a vast gothic museum with extensive gardens and expansive medieval art collection. There, she works with chief curator Patrick Roland and another summer intern, Rachel Mondray - both of whom are into researching the origins of tarot and the cards and their earliest relationship, if any exists, to divination, or predicting the future (raising the age-old question of whether whatever happens to us humans is because we have free will or because every move we make is predestined).

Early on comes the triangle of Ann, Rachel and Patrick, the latter of whom is obsessed with tarot; into the midst add hippie-like museum gardener named Leo, a charismatic man whose motives are always suspect. What is the "glue" that binds these four characters together? What secrets do their past lives hold and how do they affect their futures, individually and collectively - and what role, if any, do the tarot cards play in their yesterdays, todays and tomorrows?

The answers are slowly, enticingly revealed along with a ton of intrigue and a few twists, keeping me turning pages as fast as I could and wishing I could finish the book without life's necessary interruptions. Many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy of this wonderful book. Highly recommended!

The Cloisters by Katy Hays (Atria Books, November 2022); 320 pp.