The Cloisters by Katy Hays - Hardback

Behind the closed doors of The Cloisters, shocking secrets and a mysterious deck of tarot cards spark a dark power game in a close-knit group of researchers -- and not everyone will survive.

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 collection of medieval art where she is drawn to a circle of enigmatic researchers, including Patrick Roland, the charismatic curator specializing in the history of tarot.

Eager to escape her troubled past in rural Washington, Ann is happy to indulge in the researchers' more outlandish theories. But when Ann discovers a breakthrough in the form of a mysterious deck of fifteenth-century tarot cards, she finds herself in the center of a dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition. And when one of the staff is murdered, everyone becomes a suspect. As the game spirals out of control, Ann must decide if the tarot cards can not only teach her about the past, but also about her future.

Deeply researched, lushly told, and thrillingly paced, The Cloisters explores the shimmering line between what is real and imagined, the magical melding of the modern and the arcane, and the power we have to defy what is written in the stars and shape our own fates.