Katy Hays author page

Katy Hays biography

Katy Hays is an American novelist and art historian whose fiction includes the bestselling psychological thrillers The Cloisters and The Vipers. She holds an MA in Art History from Williams College and undertook doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her professional background includes curatorial and research work at the Clark Art Institute and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She has also taught art history as an adjunct professor, and her academic writing has been published by Ashgate, an imprint of Routledge.

Her debut novel, The Cloisters, was published by Atria Books in November 2022 and subsequently released in the UK by Penguin. Set at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval art museum in New York, it follows Ann Stilwell, a young researcher who becomes involved with a group of scholars investigating historical tarot cards and the possibility of predicting the future. The novel draws on subjects including medieval art, divination, academic rivalry and the history of fortune-telling.

The Cloisters became a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. It was selected for Jenna Bush Hager’s Read with Jenna book club in November 2022 and was also chosen as Barnes & Noble’s National Book Club selection for the same month. The novel’s museum setting reflects Hays’s professional experience in art history and museum research.

Her second novel, The Vipers, was published in the UK by Transworld in March 2025 under the Bantam imprint. Published in the United States as Saltwater by Ballantine Books, it centres on the wealthy Lingate family, whose annual visits to the Italian island of Capri are disrupted when evidence connected to a decades-old death reappears. The novel examines family relationships, inherited wealth and long-concealed secrets.

The Vipers was published in UK hardback on 27 March 2025, while its American edition, Saltwater, appeared on 25 March 2025 and became a New York Times bestseller.