Jenna Bush Hager has selected Katy Hays’ The Cloisters as the latest pick for her Today show book club.
Hays’ suspense novel, published Tuesday by Atria, follows a curatorial associate at the titular New York museum who discovers a centuries-old deck of tarot cards that might have the ability to predict the future. A critic for Kirkus wrote that “the plot and characters feel too formulaic and familiar to really surprise.”
“I have recommended it to everybody that I possibly can because I feel like it’s the perfect mystery,” Hager said. “It’s about as Gothic and mysterious as you can get.”
In an interview with the Audible blog, Hays says she was inspired to write the novel by her interest in art history and her love for the Cloisters museum.
“I always want to set my book in a place that someone wants to really feel immersed in the atmosphere, in the environment,” Hays said. “I was thinking about it and working on it during the pandemic when still we weren’t able to travel very much, and it gave me an opportunity to spend some time in my own head, in the imaginative world of the Cloisters, when we were so shut-down and limited.”
“The book reminds me of The Talented Mr. Ripley, but with twists that are Gone Girl,” Hager said of the novel. “It’s a story about female ambition and what’s permissible when one person is born on Park Avenue and given everything, and the other person has to work hard for what they want.”
Hager’s club isn’t the only one to shine a light on The Cloisters. Last month, Barnes & Noble announced it had selected the novel for its monthly book club, calling it “pure book club catnip that is sure to keep our readers begging for more.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
