Margaret Lea is an introverted and unworldly bookworm who is stunned to receive a letter from Vida Winters, the most famous, beloved, and best-selling author in Britain. In her correspondence, Miss Winter recounts her long ago experience with a journalist who once cut through the authoress' usual imaginative storytelling and asked instead for the truth. Shocked by this, Miss Winter has never forgotten this request, and now she claims she's ready to share her story with a biographer.
For reasons beyond Margaret's comprehension, the world-renowned authoress has chosen her. It is not an invitation that one can decline. Furthermore, Margaret has her own family secrets that she wants to escape from, and so she travels to Miss Winter's secluded house in order to hear and transcribe the old woman's story...
What follows is a Gothic tale of an extremely troubled family (and that's putting it mildly), that includes obsession, abuse, incest, betrayal, elopement, bereavement, and two little girls-twins-whose relationship makes up the crux of the book. Adeline and Emmeline are identical in piratically every way, allowed to run wild through the countryside and wreck havoc both in the house and out of it. But there's something more troubling about these two, particularly Adeline whose vicious games have a darkness to them that frightens those who come across her. The housekeeper and the gardener are the only staff that remains on the grounds, joined late in the game by a governess who tries to impose some semblance of order upon the household-with mixed results.
As the story goes on, Margaret becomes aware of her storyteller's failing health, and of the growing sense of an eerie presence in the house-or perhaps it's only vague memories of Margaret's own past intruding on the present. The answer lies in the thirteenth tale- the final story that Miss Winter is withholding until the gradual unfolding of her life story is complete.
Told in first-person narrative, but alternating between Margaret's point-of-view and the chapters that cover Vida's story, The Thirteenth Tale (which refers to a short-story publication of Vida's that is mysteriously missing it's final chapter) is a real page-turner. Drawing on the likes of the Bronte sisters, Wilkie Collins, Daphne DuMaurier, and other prolific Gothic writers for inspiration, Setterfield has woven a ghostly mystery that fits all its puzzle pieces together in a pleasing whole, whilst leaving a central enigma in place for the reader to ponder long after the book is complete.
The writing is evocative, but not exceptional; the characters are intriguing but not three-dimensional; the plot-twist is enlightening, but can be seen a mile away-and yet this is an above-average book, perfect for a cold winter day, with a swift plot, poignant resolution, and a great love of books that any fellow book-lover can appreciate.
That is, any lover of Gothic fiction. Suffice it to say, if you are not a fan of this particular genre and the deliberate melodrama that it fosters, then you will not be impressed by this volume either. This is a Gothic story in the truest sense of the word, where emotions run high, intrigues are of the most scandalous sort, and everything takes place in a dark mansion that, if not haunted by ghosts, has enough bitter, twisted, insane individuals to make up for it.
Only two things really bothered me: that the fascinating character of Isabelle leaves the story in a rather uncharacteristic and disappointing way, and that the final post-script is pure cheese (I wish I'd stopped at the second-to-last chapter which ends on an appropriate note of dry humor, rather than read of a strange reunion that had already been resolved with another character's death, and which shifted the book unnecessarily into the realm of pseudo-spirituality).
Is it life-changing literature? Of course not! And it's not trying to be: it's entertainment, pure and simple, with (as Miss Winter is clear to point out) a beginning, middle, and an end.
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