THE THIRTEENTH TALE

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is a haunting and atmospheric Gothic mystery about family secrets, lost identities, obsession and the stories we tell to hide the truth.

Margaret Lea is a quiet young woman who works in her father's antiquarian bookshop. She has never considered herself a particularly remarkable person, nor has she ever expected to become part of a famous writer's mysterious past.

Then she receives a letter from Vida Winter, one of the most celebrated and enigmatic novelists of her generation.

Winter has spent her career telling different versions of her life story, never revealing the truth about her past. Now, old and seriously ill, she wants Margaret to write her biography—and promises to finally tell her the truth.

Margaret travels to Winter's isolated home, where the writer begins recounting the extraordinary history of her childhood.

At the heart of the story is Angelfield, a decaying English estate inhabited by the strange and troubled members of the March family. As Winter describes the house, its inhabitants and the secrets that surrounded them, Margaret becomes increasingly fascinated by a mystery involving twin sisters, an isolated family and a terrible event buried in the past.

But Winter's story is not easy to unravel.

There are gaps, contradictions and missing pieces. Margaret begins to suspect that the famous writer has deliberately hidden the most important parts of her history.

As the story unfolds, Margaret's own past begins to echo the secrets she is uncovering. The boundary between the biographer and her subject becomes increasingly blurred, and she realizes that discovering Winter's truth may also force her to confront secrets about herself.

Atmospheric, elegant and richly evocative, The Thirteenth Tale is a modern Gothic classic filled with old houses, forgotten books, family mysteries and stories within stories. It is a captivating novel about the power of storytelling and the secrets that can survive for generations.