THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield

Sometimes, when you open the door to the past, what you confront is your destiny.

Reclusive author Vida Winter, famous for her collection of twelve enchanting stories, has spent the past six decades penning a series of alternate lives for herself. Now old and ailing, she is ready to reveal the truth about her extraordinary existence and the violent and tragic past she has kept secret for so long. Calling on Margaret Lea, a young biographer troubled by her own painful history, Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good. Margaret is mesmerized by the author’s tale of gothic strangeness — featuring the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess,a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Together, Margaret and Vida confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

Rating

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Bullying/Violence:

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Alternative Lifestyle/LGBT:

sibling incest

Naughty Little Tidbits: Disturbing Behaviour

Review

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Would I recommend this book for...
Teenagers?No
Adults?Yes

Comments: Talk about a beautifully versed novel. The flow of this writing, the language it was from another place and time really. However the story drug on and on and it just goes to show that no matter how lovely of a writer you are if you focus too much on the literary angle to move the story along it feels a bit like slogging though someone else's garbage. Action is the solution and there just wasn't much of that in this very long novel. It was a bit freaky in spots too, like eerie.

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