Juushika's review
The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
by Diane Setterfield
Juushika's review
The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield
Juushika's review
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Vita Winter is the most famous English author of her time, but despite of the dozens of stories she has published, she has never told the single true story of her own life. Now, old and dying, she commissions amateur biographer Margaret Lea to record her story, and begins to tell of her past: the story of a gothic mansion, a pair of feral twins, a ghost, and a fire. Winter's tale is couched within Margret's own, and both stories are deep with secrets, unfolding like a traditional gothic novel. However, Setterfield's writing does not quite rise to meet her premise, and her ghost story is readable and intriguing but never quite engrossing—in the end, it falls a bit flat. Characterization is too simple, the trope of twins is stretched too thin, and Setterfield cannot convincingly write about "the best writer in the English language" when her own skills as a writer fall so far short of that ideal. The reading is enjoyable and the concept is quite clever, but on the whole the...more
