Review: The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

She is bound to her sister. She is bound. 

This story started off with beautiful worded passages and welcomed me in with the reading/book loving Margaret, daughter of a book store owner. 

She's a biographer (dilettante in her words) and is asked by Vida Winter, England's most popular and proficient fiction novel writer. She's shocked but intrigued and also wary. Vida is completely mysterious with no one knowing anything true about her or her life. Therefore, Margaret makes Vida tell her three true things and wants time to investigate them. 

What follows is story that started off a love letter to book lovers turns into storytime as Vida divides her life into tales and relays them to Margaret. 

I don't want to spoil anything, my updates have spoilers in them if you care for more details, but as Vida seems to be an unreliable narrator, the reader spends a lot of the time questioning what is true and searching for the meaning behind what she is telling Margaret. 

I enjoyed the curled up with a blanket and by a cozy fire the segments with Vida relaying her story to Margaret; there is a unsettled feeling to them as incest, madness, ghosts, and mystery prevail through them. I wasn't as much into Margaret's life story and the connection of twins, her constant talk of her ghost twin and thinking she saw her in mirrors annoyed me more than helped add to the creepy vibe. 

The ending did have some surprising reveals but I did swing from "oh this is just going to cop out with a paranormal explanation" to "oh, well, ok, guess that can make sense". 

Overall, the story felt uneven from the beginning to the end and I'm not sure I felt the build up, the pace is too even keeled for that. There was something compelling to the writing and story and I lay that all on Vida telling her story to Margaret. Some gorgeous passages, some characters I wish could have been filled out more, and at times good unsettling vibes.

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