Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is 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, each with their own secrets and desires, including the museum’s curator, Patrick Roland, who is convinced that the history of Tarot holds the key to unlocking contemporary fortune telling.
Relieved to have left her troubled past behind and eager for the approval of her new colleagues, Ann is only too happy to indulge some of Patrick’s more outlandish theories. But when Ann discovers a mysterious, once-thought lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards she suddenly finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship and ambition.
And as the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide whether she is truly able to defy the cards and shape her own future …
CW: Death of parent, death, drug use, murder, car accident, toxic friendship
Rating
Review
I wasn’t convinced by this book. It was a promising book, but, for me, the execution wasn’t there. I can resume what I think of this book in simple words: forced, convenient, predictable and explanations coming from nowhere.
Everything feels forced in this book, but the worst was the writing. You feel that the author wants to create a toxic and suffocating atmosphere. Sadly, it’s so visible that you don’t believe it; you even feel the effort she puts into it. All the descriptions that drag on the pages, how the relationships are seen and lived. Even the more minor details are conscientiously thought about. However, we see the story from only one viewpoint, which makes it even less attractive. If we had at least one other point of view, I think the atmosphere would have been there.
I felt the author didn’t know how to articulate her story. Some of the crucial elements were too convenient, sometimes making the story’s construction too easy. Even the murder was too convenient, the story could have been flirting with the fantasy, and I would have loved it, but no, we need to have a murder (which was predictable).
Except for the descriptions, I had the feeling of having someone telling only facts. Indeed, everything is said and not shown; at some point, I was nearly convinced that the main character was telling someone else’s story. The issue with that kind of narrative and lack of another POV is that elements come from nowhere, and the rest is predictable.
I may be a little hard on this book, but I was a little disappointed by it. Even if I didn’t like most of it, I gave it two stars and not one cause; something made me continue.
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