Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7781 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Catherine Shoard, Evening Standard
"A fireside mystery with all the grisly trimmings"

Review
"A fireside mystery with all the grisly trimmings" (Catherine Shoard Evening Standard )

"This surprise bestseller is an enjoyably windswept story of incest, unnatural love and northern nastiness" (Emma Hagestadt INDEPENDENT )

"highly accomplished...intriguing twists galore" (Katie Owen Daily Telegraph )

"a captivating read" (FIRST )

"A firesdie mystery with all the grisly trimmings" (LONDON LITE )

"An involving and engrossing tale full of twists and turns...hard to put down!" (My Weekly )

"riveting from start to finish" (THE LADY )

"The Thirteenth Tale has all the ingredients of a gripping thriller with twists, turns and false leads to keep you guessing...a beautifully written and absorbing mystery" (WOMAN & HOME )

Katie Owen, Daily Telegraph
"highly accomplished...intriguing twists galore"

Customer Reviews

Terrific Tale
This is, quite simply, a rattling good yarn and that is not meant to sound derogatory in any way. One of those unputdownable books that take the reader over from the first page and leave you feeling bereft at the end. The story has everything, twins, a governess, house on a remote moor, a governess, warring siblings, abandoned baby, a fire - from this, it is clear to see that the author loves Jane Eyre (in fact quotes and references to this book abound) and, in the general decay and characteristics of its inmates, we are forcibly reminded of Wuthering Heights. There is a sneaky reference to Henry James The Turn of the Screw that sets your thoughts off at another tangent, and, in case you think this sounds all too gloomy and gothic, there are descriptions of the grounds and the gardener that make you think of The Secret Garden.

So, a terrific read and I defy anybody buying this book not to be plunged into its world and to love it as much as I have done. It is going to be HUGE

Gripping Gothic tale
An amazing book about books. I loved all the characters and the story drew me in from the very first page. It's about Margaret whose father owns a bookshop. She is writing a biography for Vida winter, who is a reclusive author and has one final secret she needs to tell. As Margaret learns more about Vida's life she finds herself confronting the ghosts from her own past.

Dianne Settlefield's writing style was so masterful it was as if she was reading aloud to me . I kept feeling as if I knew where the story was heading but then it would take another turn and I would realise I wasn't quite right. I loved the twist towards the end of the book and the last few pages were unexpectedly moving. This is a captivating gothic tale that I just could not put down and I know I will re-read it time and again.

A brilliant debut

When a first novel is immediately (and enthusiastically) compared to the works of such literary luminaries as the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, a large dose of skepticism is in order. I read this book with a jaundiced eye, expecting to eventually uncover at least one unconvincing character, a plot twist that failed to surprise, or a passage less than vivid, unworthy of the masters.

I did not.

Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale carries the reader along like a turbulent river, with unexpected eddies and undertows you can't escape. The characters are absolutely true to the worlds of Dickens and Austen, but they're originals, not derivatives. They grieve and you do, they rejoice and you do, they die and you do- almost. The whole atmosphere of the book is powerful and sweeping, in the manner of Henry James or even Joseph Conrad. (Well, minus all those ships, of course.) If I had to pick one story that gave the same overall effect as Setterfield's book, I'd pick The Turn of the Screw, since the ghost element in Setterfield's book is equally shocking and unique, although James's classic novella lacks the grand span and scope of The Thirteenth Tale. Then again, Setterfield's characters could just as easily find a home in Dickens' dangerous London squalor or in the halls of a Bronte mansion, the air thick with secrets and heavy with troubled specters anxious to make themselves known.

Intriguing, daring and even downright heart pounding at times, The Thirteenth Tale might well give you nightmares at the end, but they'll be the best- and most original- nightmares you've ever had.

-Mark Wakely, author of An Audience for Einstein