An ambitious young art historian is drawn into a clique of researchers working in the rarefied, gothic surroundings of New York's Cloisters Museum - an idyll that's shattered by a mysterious death and the revelation of the existence of a rare deck antique Tarot cards. Compelling, classy and slyly seductive - a Secret History for a new generation. On the wheel of fortune, who will emerge on top...and who will die? 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 small 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 poison 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. 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 centre 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. Deeply researched, lushly and thrillingly told, The Cloisters explores the blurred 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 in order to shape our own destinies . . .
