THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 5 BESTSELLER . . . IN HARDBACK AND NOW IN PAPERBACK!

The Secret History meets Ninth House . . . the discovery of a mysterious deck of tarot cards lays bare shocking secrets within a close-knit circle of researchers at New York's famed Met Cloisters museum.

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'Glamour, power, seduction, ambition – The Cloisters has it all. I adored this deliciously gothic, beautifully written novel.' LOUISE O'NEILL,

'Dark and enigmatic . . . a story of academic obsession, Renaissance magic and the ruthless pursuit of power. Captivating in every sense.' SARAH PEARSE

'Elegant and atmospheric and suffused with brooding menace.' LUCY CLARKE

'Sultry and sinister . . . teems with sexual tension, the secrets of divination, and scholarly obsessiveness . . . jaw-dropping.' SARAH PENNER

‘Beguiling and atmospheric, an entrancing and gripping tale.’ KATE MOSSE

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Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art.

Drawn into a small circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, Ann happy to indulge some of their more outlandish theories, including the museum's curator who is fixated on tarot and the real possibility of predicting the future.

But when Ann discovers a mysterious, once-thought lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards she finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship and ambition.

And as the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide who she trusts . . .


Instant Sunday Times bestseller, February 2024

Beguiling and atmospheric, an entrancing and gripping tale. -- KATE MOSSE, author of Labyrinth
Elegant and atmospheric and suffused with brooding menace, The Cloisters transports us to the dark corridors of museum life, embroiling the reader in a twisting mystery, while also intelligently exploring the nature of fate versus freewill. -- LUCY CLARKE, author of The Castaways
Glamour, power, seduction, ambition - The Cloisters has it all. I adored this deliciously gothic, beautifully written novel. -- LOUISE O'NEILL, author of Idol
This is a modern, Gothic masterpiece. Successfully linking modern critical thinking with the divinity of the past, and human nature's desire to believe that there is something else out there. 9/10 * INDEPENDENT *
The dark and enigmatic world of The Cloisters captured me from the off . . . a story of academic obsession, Renaissance magic and the ruthless pursuit of power. Captivating in every sense. -- SARAH PEARSE, author of The Sanatorium
Sultry and sinister . . . Hays' debut teems with sexual tension, the secrets of divination, and scholarly obsessiveness . . . jaw-dropping. -- SARAH PENNER, author of The Lost Apothecary
A sinister slow burn tale of obsession, power, secrets and academic rivalry . . . it's been weeks since I finished the book and I'm still impressed by how much it affected me. **** * CULTUREFLY *
'Dark and compelling . . . richly atmospheric and full of historic detail, it draws the reader into its world of the archive and the occult. As its central mystery unfolds amid the stifling heat of a New York Summer it soon becomes clear that nobody in it is quite who they first appear.' -- SALLY HINCHCLIFFE, author of Hare House
Like the moment before a thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, The Cloisters is sultry, lush, and trembling with menace. * JULIA MAY JONAS, author of Vladimir *
In Hays' hands, the subject of tarot is a fascinating one and the twists and turns come thick and fast. It's full of menace. * DAILY EXPRESS *

Katy Hays is the author of the international bestseller, The Cloisters. In addition to writing, Katy works as an adjunct Art History Professor, teaching rural students from Truckee to Tecopa. She holds an MA in Art History from Williams College and pursued her PhD in Art History at UC Berkeley. Her academic writing has been published by Ashgate, an imprint of Routledge.
Her fiction explores how far humans are willing to go to believe the unbelievable, strange-but-real worlds, and complex female friendships. When not writing, Katy is a skier, cyclist, trail runner, and reader. She lives with her husband and their dog, Queso, in the Sierra Nevada, California.

Find out more at www.katyhays.com
Instagram @heykatyhays