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Title: The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Atria
List Price: $26.00
Our Price: $4.49
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| The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria Lucky (and skilled) 13 | Instantly, I was transported. By story as well as by its telling. Any book lover will know within the first sentence or two, more times than not, and so I knew: treasure. In Diane Setterfield's "The Thirteenth Tale," the reader does not have to choose between intruiging storyline and strong writing. The book is built on both. It has the flavor of old classics, and the comparisons with the Bronte sisters and Daphne du Maurier fit well. Yet Setterfield also manages to achieve her own signature.
Margaret Lea loves books more than people, and so the world of a quaint old bookshop of old leather tomes that one picks up only with gloved hands suits her just so. She lives in the world of words on paper, and she writes her own. An obscure biography she'd written becomes, then, what brings her out of the dusky shop and into the dusky world of Vida Winter. Vida Winter is a famed author, a reclusive artistic sort that the outside world can never quite capture. She won't let it. What interviews she does are all yet more storytelling, each one elaborately contradicting any other. Yet when life nears its end, even those who enjoy living in the secrecy of elaborate, however colorful, lies, come to long for truth at last. Vida Winter calls young Margaret to her home to tell her the truth.
Why Margaret? Something in her first written biography gives her away. Even when writing factually about others, after all, every honest writer will tell you - there is, deep inside the words, their own truth. Vida Winter knows that, and she senses in the young woman's work an understanding for the complexities of sibling relationships. Even, as chance would have it, and especially that of twins.
So the story unfolds, expertly, little by little and logically, building upon itself. Here is a twisted love, here is ugliness and beauty, here is human nature gone wild, and rivalry intertwined with lifelong bond. We find tragedy and adultery, banishment and reunion. All of this is revealed in Vida Winter's voice, even as she grows ever nearer "the wolf" in the shadows, death, that with waning patience awaits her. Alongside Winter's voice is the young biographer's, and we see the parallel lines and hear the echoes. Winter has indeed chosen correctly. If anyone will recognize the truth in the lies, this one will.
Expertly done. Setterfield holds firm to the end. Draw the blinds, start the fire, settle in for the read.
| | The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria Incredible, enthralling, beautifully written! | | I love love love this book! I cannot put it down! This book is for the person who loves to read and appreciates books. It's a romantic tale about the structure of family relationships and how they affect your whole world. I love the mysteries within mysteries in this book. I cannot get enough of it and I am letting all my fellow readers borrow it. If you love mystery, adventure, disfuntional families and reading- you will love this book! I will defintely add more Diane Setterfield to my wish list! | | The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria Amazing !!! | | I love this book!!! I have to agree with other readers, that this one of the few books that I want to read again. The most amazing story !!! What more can I say.. amazing | | The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria A treasure of a book | | The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is a treasure of a book on so many levels. The language is wonderful and engaging - detailed and specific. Each main character, Margaret Lea and Vida Winter grow throughout the story, becoming more open and more engaged to each other. The secrets in the story are so creative and fascinating. The primary focus of the importance and value of books is a treat for those of us who decorate heavily with bookshelves!! I just loved this book. | | The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria We all have a Thirteenth Tale | This book continues the grand tradition of the classic gothic novels with crumbling houses, ghostly figures, mysterious disappearances, and tons of sepulchral atmosphere.
The novel tells the twin tales of a enigmatic novelist and the biographer she hires to tell her true life story. Throughout the narrative we meet a small cast of characters, a couple of which come straight from central casting unfortunately. They all have important parts to play in this sweeping story, which plays out much like an archaeologist reveals the history buried in the dirt - one layer at a time.
The Thirteenth Tale referenced in the title has to do with a missing story in a book by the novelist that everyone wants to know about. Her fans have been asking for ages about the story, and when some of them find out that the biographer is working with her, they try to get the biographer to tell them about it. It is a small but significant part of the book which speaks to the idea that life has many unknowns and does not always turn out the way we were hoping. Sometimes, try as we might, we all have a Thirteenth Tale that we leave unfinished.
I listened to the audio book of this, and was extremely pleased. The two women reading the book did an excellent job differentiating the characters, not just by voice but by mannerism and personality.
I took one star because, as I mentioned above, a couple of characters felt like they were lifted from other books. Setterfield does a good job making them feel somewhat fresh, nonetheless. | | The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria Product Description | When Margaret Lea opened the door to the past, what she confronted was her destiny. All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist. The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission. As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves. The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life. | | The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Atria Amazon.com | | Settle down to enjoy a rousing good ghost story with Diane Setterfield's debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale. Setterfield has rejuvenated the genre with this closely plotted, clever foray into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths. She never cheats by pulling a rabbit out of a hat; this atmospheric story hangs together perfectly. There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. Vida has been confounding her biographers and fans for years by giving everybody a different version of her life, each time swearing it's the truth. Because of a biography that Margaret has written about brothers, Vida chooses Margaret to tell her story, all of it, for the first time. At their initial meeting, the conversation begins: "You have given nineteen different versions of your life story to journalists in the last two years alone." She [Vida] shrugged. "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller." "I am a biographer, I work with facts." The game is afoot and Margaret must spend some time sorting out whether or not Vida is actually ready to tell the whole truth. There is more here of Margaret discovering than of Vida cooperating wholeheartedly, but that is part of Vida's plan. The transformative power of truth informs the lives of both women by story's end, and The Thirteenth Tale is finally and convincingly told. --Valerie Ryan |
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