The Thirteenth Tale
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Vida Winter, a bestselling yet reclusive novelist, has created many outlandish life histories for herself, all of them invention. Now old and ailing, at last she wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. Her letter to biographer Margaret Lea – a woman with secrets of her own – is a summons.
Vida’s tale is one of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family: the beautiful and wilful Isabelle and the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida’s storytelling, but as a biographer she deals in fact not fiction and she doesn’t trust Vida’s account.
As she begins her researches, two parallel stories unfold. Join Margaret as she begins her journey to the truth – hers, as well as Vida’s.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Beautifully written Setterfield’s debut is literary entertainment full of gothic wonder and a rare depth.
This is an intriguing story of the search for the truth by both the biographer and the subject. The author weaves the tale so perfectly and sometimes one forgets and wonders whether is the author’s or Vida’s world.