The Thirteenth Tale is a gothic mystery packed with family secrets and twists that keep the reader guessing. The elderly Vida Winter, the world’s most famous living author, asks an unknown young author, Margaret Lea, to write her biography. Notorious for feeding the press with conflicting stories of her origins (“When one is nothing, one invents. It fills a void.”), Winter promises to tell Margaret the truth. Winter may be telling the truth, but the reader’s perceptions change moment to moment as the mystery of her past is slowly revealed.
The Thirteenth Tale is a strange mix of bizarre characters, ghosts, twins, a governess that disappears, and a family haunted by mental illnesses along with rape and incest while delving into identity, love, family, loss, and separation.
This is a book lover’s book. It’s packed with literary references to Sherlock Holmes, Withering Heights, etc, and a love of literature and writing pervades every paragraph of this work. Writing and insights about writing are the stars of this novel. Setterfield’s writing is beautiful, lyrical at times, and the novel’s twists and turns draw the reader further and further into the mystery.
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The Thirteenth Tale (Atria Books, September 12, 2006) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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