The Thirteenth Tale

Last weekend, I splurged and read some great best-selling fiction, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I tend to shy away from books on the NYT best seller fiction list, but this was recommended by a reader I admire (vicariously, online) and so I reserved it at the library. When my number finally came up, I checked it out, set it aside for a few days, but then decided to get on it since I had a limited two-week, no renewal period to finish and return.

One of the heroines of the book is a bookish, plain woman who has worked at her father's book store since childhood. Margaret loves reading the classics, and Jane Eyre and The Woman in White are referred to quite often. She is inexplicably asked to serve as the biographer for a renown author of fiction, Vida Winter. In the course of the novel, both women's stories unwind in gripping manner.

As Vida's pre-fame, previously cloaked life emerges, the home of her childhood, Angelfield, becomes another character in the book. A large manor, in rural England, I was forcibly reminded of DuMarier's powerful and mystic Manderly, although Angelfield has long since left behind all its days of glory. The house is the guarder of many horrendous family secrets, and at times, the family dysfunction to painful to read.

All in all, a good read. Well written. Recommended.