The Thirteenth Tale: Gothic Storytelling at Its Best
A book review
I must admit at the outset that I doubted Diane Setterfield’s 2006 debut novel The Thirteenth Tale could live up to the hype surrounding it. In various reviews, it had been compared to everything from Charles Dickens to the Bronte sisters to Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind (this seemed the most outrageous claim to me, loving that novel as I do). After reading it, I can honestly say that it lives up to the hype.
I am by no means saying that Setterfield is Dickens, nor that The Thirteenth Tale is The Shadow of the Wind. Neither is true, and Setterfield would probably never claim either of these herself (at least not publicly). But in a world where we love to stuff people, books, and everything else into neat little categories, invoking these literary greats when talking about The Thirteenth Tale is understandable because it is one beautiful read.
This is one of those novels that literally has everything you could want jammed into its 416 pages, and yet it all works. There is mystery and history and ghosts and danger and romance and books and feral twins and even two heroines, and all of it weaves together…
