Vide in French means empty…What did winter mean to me? One thing only : death.” p 34

Though I can’t help thinking of French too. How can a moment in our personal history be so important and yet forgotten because of our infant state? What we believe about our birth becomes a fictitious story, but it is still our story.

This quote feels like a universal experience. “All children mythologize their birth.” p 26, 357 I don’t want to spoil the plot and so I am dropping clues with quotes. Is there madness? A secret wife in an attic? Romance with a Byronic hero? Definitely a fire. Fairly soon into the telling of the stories I was curious to see how the classic tale of Jane Eyre would fit in with the scattered clues that there is an unsolved mystery. The story line is intriguing as it hints at connections between threads running through Vida Winter’s hidden childhood and Margaret Lea’s suppressed story. I was enthralled with Setterfield’s writing! It was so wonderful to delve into The Thirteenth Tale with its buttery rich language. I’ve included this cover (left) that reminds me of the book The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and interestingly I feel like both books have a similar haunting quality though they truly are not similar. Both women will have to confront their pasts and the weight of family secrets… and the ghosts that haunt them still. Margaret carefully records Miss Winter’s account and finds herself more and more deeply immersed in the strange and troubling story. Where is the thirteenth tale? Intrigued, Margaret agrees to meet Miss Winter and act as her biographer.Īs Vida Winter unfolds her story, she shares with Margaret the dark family secrets that she has long kept hidden as she remembers her days at Angelfield, the now burnt-out estate that was her childhood home. She is spellbound by the stories and confused when she realizes the book only contains twelve stories. Late one night while pondering whether to accept the task of recording Miss Winter’s personal story, Margaret begins to read her father’s rare copy of Miss Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation. The request takes Margaret by surprise-she doesn’t know the author, nor has she read any of Miss Winter’s dozens of novels. Vida Winter, gravely ill, wants to recount her life story before it is too late, and she wants Margaret to be the one to capture her history. It is a hand-written request from one of Britain’s most prolific and well-loved novelists. Here are a couple of book covers to get a flavorįor the story though we are taught not to judgeīiographer Margaret Lea returns one night to her apartment above her father’s antiquarian bookshop. Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The thirteenth tale review