The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Ann Stillwell is delighted to leave Washington, leave behind her grieving mother and the memories of her father. When she gets to New York however, all of her dreams are dashed. The man she was supposed to work under has left the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the summer. Luckily, even as her heart is falling from the news she's just gotten from the Director of Human Resources, hope springs. Patrick Roland, the curator at The Cloisters, needs help and, well, Ann is available. While slightly disappointed that the job isn't going to be what she expected, at least she has a job.

It's this job that introduces her to not only Patrick but Rachel and Leo as well as a handful of other people but those are the two that are going to affect her the most deeply as she is dragged into theories of 15th-century fortune telling. Could a deck of cards really tell the future? Especially a particular set of cards? And what does it have to do with her father's work? And her mentor's?

When their work leads to someone dying, Ann suddenly has to decide what she believes in and how much fate really does play a hand in our lives. 

I am not usually a reader of darker books like this but around the Halloween season, I often turn towards these and this was a perfect book for this time of year. 

Four stars

This book comes out November 1, 2022

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own