MomReviews

Have you ever had a secret? The kind of secret that you eventually just have to confess to someone? Which was harder, keeping the secret, or confessing it?

Secrets and confessions form the basis for the book The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Mysterious and reclusive author Vida Winter, who, in the book, is the “most famous living author in the English language”, writes a book called “Thirteen Tales”, but it only contains twelve stories, and the title is changed to “Tales of Change of Desperation”. Every time she is interviewed, Miss Winter tells the interviewer another wild story about her childhood and upbringing, and no one is ever sure if she has told the truth.

Margaret Lea is a young woman who has grown up, with her father, in a bookstore attached to their house. Margaret reads books the way other people eat meals, books are an integral part of her existence. One day she receives a letter from Vida Winter, who claims to be ready to tell the true story of her life, and she would like Margaret to come to her house to take down the story.

And thus begins a story that I promise you will not be able to put down. I found myself stopping after every few pages, staring into space as I turned the words I had just read over and over in my mind, visualizing the events taking place, so vivid was the prose. I was right there with naive Isabelle, wild children Adeline and Emmeline, Hester the governess, the servant known as “Missus”, and the gardener called John-the-dig. I read, and I read.

I envied Margaret Lea having access to an entire bookstore full of every book imaginable, and long hours under the covers in which to read them. But Margaret Lea’s story is also a sad one, and without giving away the story, I’ll just say that she had a special reason to take Vida Winter up on her offer to tell her story, her real story. The book has an ending I did not see coming, and I found myself paging back looking for certain parts and saying to myself “a-ha! NOW that makes sense!” The Thirteenth Tale is well-deserving of it’s #1 New York Times Bestseller status, and of all the praise it has received from magazines, newspapers, and literary publications.

Fans of Jane Eyre and other Victorian gothic romances will especially enjoy this book. The themes of class, unrequited love, and tragedy are used heavily throughout the book. For a Q&A with Diane Setterfield, including where she got the idea for the book, please visit The Thirteenth Tale’s website, which is interactive and fun to browse. You’ll get lots of great suggestions for other books, even traditional English recipes.

To say that this book is wonderful is really an understatement. The extraordinarily tragic circumstances of Vida Winter’s life, what it ultimately means to Margaret Lea to sit and listen to the story, how both Vida and Margaret confront ghosts that have been haunting them for their whole lives, surprises that are revealed, what “family” really means, these are all topics that could be further explored individually in many more reviews. At the conclusion of the book you will find questions that can be explored by a Book Club or Reading Group, or just to give you more to think about after finishing the book.

I’m going to do you a favor and help you cross at least one gift to buy off of your Christmas gift list. Please click this link to the Amazon page selling The Thirteenth Tale, and buy a copy for someone on your list who loves to read. Heck, buy two so you can keep one for yourself. Because I promise, once you start reading it, you will be very glad you have a copy of your own.

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