When Ann Stilwell leaves her family home, she's determiend never to go back. Now she's found a dream job in The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection, and joins other scholars there studying the lost art of divination. Soon Ann is caught up in the world of tarot, and living, breathing and eating everything about The Cloisters.

This wasn't bad - I haven't read too many 'dark academia' books and I think this is quite a nice book to start out with as we have a clear purpose of Ann's desires, and the overwhelming impulses of knowledge and research and how they may help her in the future. The book's atmosphere was really good - there were times I could feel the cool shadowed corridors of The Cloisters, and the brightness of the gardens in contrast, as well as smell the old books and artefacts and hear the pages rustling - or even see the flash of gold from the tarot cards.

I'm not really into tarot myself so I'd be interested to know if those who are found the book accurate in terms of readings and how tarot and divination can be used. From the outside perspective I found it interesting but couldn't quite understand the hold it took on Rachel and Ann.

Rachel and Ann's relationship is one of the main focuses on this story as well as they become more wrapped around each other, and you're not really sure if Ann can trust Rachel or if Rachel is vulnerable and lonely and therefore leaning more on Ann than she realises. I actually wouldn't have minded this taking a darker, sexy , sapphic turn as the relationship between the two of them was probably one beat away from being sexual and I think it would have worked pretty well for the story.