Here is a memoir of twelve years as a contemplative nun in a silent monastery. ‘Cloistered’ takes the reader deep into the hidden world of a traditional Carmelite monastery as it approaches the third Millennium and tells the story of an intense personal journey into and out of an enclosed life of poverty, chastity and obedience. Finding an apparently perfect world at Akenside Priory, and a haven after the loss of her father, Catherine Coldstream trusts herself to a group of twenty silent women, believing she is trusting herself to God. As the beauty and mystery of an ancient way of life enfolds her, she surrenders herself wholly to its power, only to find that all is not as it seems behind the Order’s closed doors.