The Cloisters

 The Cloisters (2022) by Katy Hays

Synopsis (from the book flap): When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she hopes 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 and Renaissance art. There she is drawn into a circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, including Patrick Roland, the museum's mercurial curator who specializes in the history of tarot; Rachel Mondray, Patrick's beautiful curatorial associate and sometime muse; and Leo Bitburg, the gardener who nurtures the museum's precious collection of medicinal and poisonous plants.

Relieved to have left her troubled past in rural Washington behind her, Ann longs for the approbation of her colleagues and peers and is happy to indulge their more outlandish theories, only to find that their fascination with fortune-telling runs deeper than academic obsession. Patrick is determined to prove that ancient divination holds the key to the foretelling of the future. And when Ann stumbles across a breakthrough in the form of a mysterious and previously-believed lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards, she finds herself at the center of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship, and ambition.

Then there is an unexpected and devastating death and suddenly everyone becomes a suspect. As the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide if the tarot cards can not only teach her about the past, but also about her future.

So...books with an academic bent are my jam (or whatever the trending phrase is now). When I had to pick a book from one of three celebrity book clubs for one of the challenges I do and I saw the synopsis for this one I was thrilled. So many of the books that wind up on these lists just aren't appealing to me. But mysterious goings on amongst researchers at a museum? Cool. Count me in.

Except, the plot just isn't all that. And the characters--same. Having closed the book, none of them have really stuck with me. I don't know if the whole point of the book was to prove that you can't change what's meant to be and that Fate (with a capital F) controls everything, but it just felt like a cheat. That Ann just happened to find notes referring to what they're researching in the haphazard box of junk that her mom ships her from her (deceased) father's study? That the whole story circles back to the death of her father and THAT just happened to be the answer to how he died. [Can't tell you what THAT is because that would be a major spoiler.] The final twist should have been more impactful, but by that point it just felt anticlimactic. ★★

First line (Prologue): Death always visited me in August.
First line (1st Chapter): I would arrive in New York at the beginning of June.

Last line: But now, like Rachel, I'd rather not know how the story ends.

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Deaths = 6 (one hit by car; three drowned; one poisoned; one fell from height)