The Thirteenth Tale
By Diane Setterfield
Story telling at its best: The need of telling your story and the need to know different stories can consume you. This is a story of twins - those who stayed alive in flesh and also those who stayed alive in sprit. This books revolves around two stories - one for a well to do family living in a big house and the other for a biographer living with her parents. A mystery caught up in the web of family drama and complicated characters. Angelfield is huge mansion where a family lives, flourishes and lastly withers away. The girls living there make another life for themselves and that is when they come in contact with the second set of twins. However, throughout their lives they harbor a deep and dark secret which comes out only at the end and breaks the heart of the reader.
Amazing writing: The writer has the capability of making you get lost in her words and her characters and her story. The book can engulf you and you can get lost inside the shop, roads, house, cake, garden etc. mentioned in the book. It took me some time to get hooked to this book, but once I got into it, I could even dream about the story and the characters. I love this book and it has stayed with me just like the Night circus. I would love to come back to it one day.
Perfect book for book lovers: This is a book for people who love books. I wish I was the biographer who could spend her days surrounded by books. Any book which involves book shop, library, reading, writing; I feel like I could enter it and live there forever. I want to be a part of that book store and read each and every book. In case you want someone to become fond of books, ask him/her to read this one.
Certain Excerpts
"One gets so used to one's own horrors, one forgets how they must seem to other people."
“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
