I thought this was a really great story. There was a point where I guessed something that was later revealed. When I guessed it, I dismissed it as too hokey, though it turned out to be the case. I was really intrigued by the storytelling though. The only things I wasn't thrilled with were the secret and the ending as it just sort of wrapped up really quickly after more than 400 pages of details. ( )

With a flavor of Rebecca and Jane Eyre, this book explores the mystery of a well known novelist who gives each interviewer a different story of her life. ( )

I loved the ending of this book. While reading, I could tell that there was going to be a twist to it but couldnt guess the exact details so it was enjoyable until the very end to see how it fell into place.

The book moved along quickly for me. It was one of those books where when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it and looking forward to when I could nestle in and read it some more. And now that I am done, it has stayed with me a bit.

I would recommend this book and will probably even read it again. Great book! ( )

Anxiously waiting for Diane Setterfield to write another book! ( )

What interested me most about The Thirteenth Tale is it’s voice – it reads exactly like something out of the 1800s, without the pretentiousness of modern imitation. There are mentions of cars and firefighters, but it’s such an old-school narrative style and premise that it’s difficult to tell which era it’s set in. That aside, it’s fascinatingly well-written, both in terms of adherence to to Victorian style and in terms of page-turnability.*

Each character is utterly convincing, which is surprising considering the potential for cliches. A reclusive beautiful crazy woman – interesting. A plain female narrator who manages to uncover the truth – also interesting, and besides, it’s not like she didn’t have help. The crazy woman in the metaphorical attic – very Jane Eyre, but who would expect that in contemporary literature? And the clues leading up to her discovery were subtle and creepy enough, with enough potential to lead somewhere else, to keep things interesting.

Though I found the first few pages a bit slow, I was still up until four am reading on, and once you get used to the tone (again, all the readability of contemporary literature with a dead-on voice for the Victorian era – Setterfield is a literature expert, after all) it’s fascinating.

First published: http://www.carolynyates.com/books/thi... ( )