The Thirteenth Tale ⭑⭑⭑

Genre: Gothic Mystery

US Publication: 2006

Print: 416 pages

Audio: 15 hours 38 minutes (unabridged)

Confetti Rating: 3 stars

REVIEW:

I don’t mean to brag, but I just finally knocked The Thirteenth Tale off my Goodreads To Read shelf after it’s been languishing there since the day I set up my account. (High five… to myself.)

As it turns out, it’s a five-star book that I only enjoyed at a three-star level.

Is it gothic goodness with gorgeous prose? Yes, it absolutely is.

Did I find it to be “a love letter to books” as has been so oft claimed? Eh, I guess, but only a certain kind of books. Jane Eyre-kind of books.

Was I bored? Yeah, I really was.

While the brooding atmosphere and hint of ghosts put it on my reading list for the October Halloween reading season, The Thirteenth Tale actually begins its story in November. Seasonal readers who’ve also had it languishing on your “someday” shelf… it’s not too late! Hundreds of thousands of glowing reviews imply you might enjoy this story of a dying writer and her reluctant biographer more than I did.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.

The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself - all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.