![]() ![]() “Once upon a time,” she tells Margaret, “there was a haunted house… a library… Once upon a time there were twins.” She also never read any of Winter’s novels.īut Vida’s letter offers an irresistible story. ![]() ![]() It’s a strange choice for Margaret has written only one biography to date (even that was more of a pamphlet than a book). She asks Margaret Lea to undertake the project. Now in ailing health, she decides it is time to commission a biography, something she has always previously resisted. Every journalist sent to interview her comes away with a different account of her parentage and early years. Vida has spent six decades creating various life histories for herself - many of them outlandish and all of them inventions. The novel begins on the day Margaret Lea, an antiquarian bookseller in Cambridge, receives an unexpected letter from “England’s best-loved writer”, the reclusive and enigmatic Vida Winter. Setterfield pays homage to the classic Gothic novel - especially to Jane Eyre which plays a key role in the text - yet she skilfully reimagines it to offer a riveting multi-layered mystery tale. The Thirteenth Tale is however, far more than the sum of all these parts. Fog-shrouded moors and snow-induced powercuts. Mysterious disappearances and appearances. Twins who communicate via a private language. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield’s debut novel, is perfect for a game of “spot the Gothic trope”Ī ruined house full of attics and hiding spaces. ![]()
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