Page Fourteen

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I would never have picked this book up had I not read many reviews that praised this book. Even my own librarian said to me "Ooh, you're going to like this one!" when I went to pick it up. Classified as a "ghost story," or "mystery," or "a return to a rich vein of storytelling we loved as children," the book tells the tale of Margaret Lea, a young woman who works with her father in their antiquarian bookshop, who is asked to write the biography of a famous Yorkshire writer, Vida Winter. Winter's books are eaten up like today's Harry Potter series, and yet no one has ever been able to get the true account of Winter's life. Now, at the end of her life, frail and dying, Winter finally reveals her story.

I suppose I would agree that the book reads like an "old fashioned story," and that it is indeed a mystery (a genre which I rarely, if ever, read). However, I had high hopes for this book which were not fully met. In fact, I found the story a bit forced and a bit of a letdown to be honest. Setterfield's main contentions centering on the separation of twins and "twin-ness" became a bit annoying. In the end, merely "mildy entertaining."