The Cloisters by Katy Hays dips into a new side of dark academia for me, one which has spurred a wave of curiosity from deep within, and that is art history. Art history is one of those subject that I wanted to take at school but my subject choices didn’t align right for that to happen so getting that art history immersion through Ann (just one letter off!) and this mesmerising read was truly a dream come true.

Let’s paint the scene, shall we? Set in the bustling heart of New York among the razzle-dazzle of elitist opulence and culture, The Met in our sights and the summer internship bringing in art historians from across the US (likely the world, though insight is limited), we have Ann. Ann, from small-town Walla Walla, Washington, a nobody who graduated from a university of no standing compared to the Ivy League scholars interning. It’s made clear from the beginning that Ann is different, and here its poor different. Dresses in what would be described as cheap and generic compared to her peers with style and swagger and distinct class to their aura. She’s only here because her supervisor throughout uni is a big name in the art history academia world but there a problem. He’s on an overseas excursion and he forgot all about her. No supervisor, no placement. No placement, back to Walla Walla. No so it seems.

In comes a mysterious curator from The Cloisters, a smaller yet no less impressive museum. He’s magnetic, his entire being demands Ann’s attention and it seems like he compels everyone in the space around him with his presence. He saves her from being homebound, adding her to his summer internship to fill in a missing slot among his list, and Ann’s whisked away to The Cloisters. the lovely, medieval-esque beauty of the Cloisters with their deadly gardens of poisons and their secrets within the pages of the books, the Gothic structures and the other inhabitants of the Cloisters. It gets even better. What is it they’re working on, you may ask? Their work lies in the occult and in seeing into the future, the origins of the tarot and why believers sought after its power and, hopefully, the first ever cards to be created.

I am someone who is vastly interested in the history of how people went about finding answers to life using such acts of prediction in items like cards, reeds, fire. To seek out the truth of oneself and where you are going and how best to act and react to what lies ahead. The idea that such rituals could be believed in because its foundations are set in a time without scientific understanding is incredibly interesting to me and more so in an age where science and the debate surrounding the true place of intuition and mysticism in today’s world. I have my own thoughts about it, but back to the book and it’s themes.

The language and description within this book are so stunning. I feel enchanted glimpsing into the world within the walls of the Cloisters. It’s magical and alluring and reminds me of laying honey out for a trap – a trap which Ann finds herself in. Not only do we get conflict on a simple level, like that between friends or rivals, but we get the internal conflicts that come with such competitive environments as this. We get the links back to her family, to her late father ad the work he did. We get her moral dilemmas in regards to finding answers, in sharing those findings versus doing what one perceives as the right thing. The issues in unveiling truths that are better left alone, better left buried and kept in the dark corners of world where they will never come to light. The place that interest and dedication to research gives way to obsession and the seeking of power and control over the sharing of knowledge, the understanding of the truth. How manipulation in a situation such as this, a teacher and his two helpers, one of which he may already have his claws in and the other a fresh naive face who doesn’t understand the reality of the world she has stepped into, plays such a huge role in the development and destruction of relationships. This book has it and oh does it make this a joy to read.

There are some hiccups along the way for me. Ann’s character, playing the naive girl so new to the world, gets on my nerves a little with how passive and unaware she is to what lies beneath the surface. She’s a little too sweet – I get that the elitist tendrils of how life is and what privilege and money will get you doesn’t quite settle in until the middle of the novel and she is aware of most of what’s going on, but I just wish she got there sooner. I’m also always opposed to relationships of obvious power imbalance, especially when one person is meant to be a teacher or mentor and the other is a student. Other than that, this was a fantastic read and I can see it becoming a massive hit with dark academia readers once it gets mentioned more.