An orphaned and unwanted cousin, the slow demise and dwindling number of occupants in the moors, or an unknown lead character who’s last name bares a resemblance to a Mrs de Winter. The Thirteenth Tale is a dark story with elements of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. These two assumptions wave the reader back and forth as to who is responsible for the mother being committed to an asylum, forcing her brother into confinement till his death, or the death of the loyal gardener, or the fire destroying Angelfield estate itself? Curious things begin to happen at Angelfield all of which are explained away by a ghost, but outside the family unit it is called off to those strange twins Adeline and Emmeline. Miss Winter’s story is a bit strange and enthralling centering on the Angelfield family, once wealthy and well-respected and now is slowly whirling into oblivion. Vida, after numerous interviews has finally decided to unburden herself and write her memoirs with the help of a ghostwriter, Margaret Lea, a freelance amateur biographer who has one thing in common, they are both twins. Vida Winter, a famed author renown for her novel The Thirteenth Tale, with the thirteenth tale being omitted. The Thirteenth Tale is part ghost story part fairy tale (Grimm Brother’s style). Margaret carefully records Miss Winter’s account and finds herself more and more deeply immersed in the strange and troubling story.īoth women will have to confront their pasts and the weight of family secrets. Where is the thirteenth tale? Intrigued, Margaret agrees to meet Miss Winter and act as her biographer.Īs Vida Winter unfolds her story, she shares with Margaret the dark family secrets that she has long kept hidden as she remembers her days at Angelfield, the now burnt-out estate that was her childhood home. She is spellbound by the stories and confused when she realizes the book only contains twelve stories. Late one night while pondering whether to accept the task of recording Miss Winter’s personal story, Margaret begins to read her father’s rare copy of Miss Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation.

The request takes Margaret by surprise - she doesn’t know the author, nor has she read any of Miss Winter’s dozens of novels. Vida Winter, gravely ill, wants to recount her life story before it is too late, and she wants Margaret to be the one to capture her history. It is a hand-written request from one of Britain’s most prolific and well-loved novelists.

Biographer Margaret Lea returns one night to her apartment above her father’s antiquarian bookshop.

The thirteenth tale book review