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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
First read 09/2025 for Farnham book club
'I lived at Angelfield.'
Her voice trembled over the place name, and she scratched nervously at her palm in an unconscious gesture.
'I was sixteen.'
Her voice grew stilted; fluency deserted her.
'There was a fire.'
The words were expelled from her throat hard and dry, like stones.
'I lost everything.'
And then, the cry breaking from her lips before she could stop it, 'Oh, Emmeline!' [p. 58]
A woman walks through the dismal autumn streets, before arriving at the bookshop where she works, only to receive a mysterious letter that kicks off the plot: The Thirteenth Tale shares an opening with Tanith Lee's Dark Dance, as well as a Neo-Gothic sensibility. Setterfield can't match Lee for atmosphere, though, and whilst reading I frequently had the sense that Setterfield hadn't done her research, or didn't want to, and often had her characters act in not especially believable ways in order to increase the (melo)drama. The last I was usually willing to overlook in light of the Gothic's roots in Romanticism, but at times I found my credulity stretched to breaking point, such as when Margaret goes to 'break the news gently' to Vida Winter and, upon walking into the room, immediately hisses 'Bones!'—at which point she learns that Vida is holding
I'd noticed that Vida habitually referred to herself in the third person when narrating her story, and preferred to include her twin and use 'we', so I took careful note when she first used 'I' on page 168. Imagine my surprise, when, on page 231, Margaret emphasises Vida's shift to first person pronouns, as though it were precipitated by recent events. No, Maggie, it's been happening sporadically for the last fifty pages! Please pay attention. Although perhaps this is not too surprising: early on, Margaret says she prefers older books, since the endings are "proper" and "wind everything up nice and neatly" (p. 32), but the 19th Century literature she favours is often bizarre and nonsensical in comparison with strictly developed 20th C. ideas of verisimilitude. She lists The Castle of Otranto among her favourites (p. 47), for crying out loud! Although I suppose that does have a tidy ending, in its own way, at the expense of any kind of sense. (She also includes 'The Spectre Bride', which is a short story, too short to be found in Miss Winter's library.) And, incidentally, you don't wear gloves to read old books.
Horror has long had a fraught relationship with disability politics due to its tendency to turn the body to sensational ends. I recently reread Lee's short story 'The Gorgon' (free to read here), which rather elegantly locates the horror, not in the disability of the body, but in the cruelty of the narrator's response to it. Unsurprising, then, that I disliked the way The Thirteenth Tale uses disfigurement for gross-out value. Miss Winter declares that "One gets so used to one's own horrors, one forgets how they must seem to other people" (p. 60), but given that the disabled hand isn't even mentioned as a recurring motif in her novels, I hardly think that her difference would be forgotten. The handling of physical and mental disability, and also the incest, leaves the whole thing feeling rather lurid.
There are never any clear indications of time period or location, so it feels a bit vague, when a historical mystery like this needs to feel grounded and plausible. Hester, the governess, makes mention of The Turn of the Screw, published 1898 (p. 380), placing Vida's youth sometime in the early 20th Century, but before WWI, when governesses fell out of favour. Her age during the Margaret timeline is never confirmed, but she is estimated to be in her seventies, so the rest of the book likely takes place in the Sixties or Seventies.
There are some really wonderful moments of quiet horror throughout The Thirteenth Tale, such as Margaret's description of her father engrossed in a book: "He cannot hear me. He cannot see me. He is in another world, and I am a ghost." (p. 11) The twin has long been used in horror, and on pages 27-28 we see Margaret's desire to read disrupted by another uncanny repetition, "Tell me the truth." (That old opposition between stories and truth.) Dr Neil Cocks does some great discussion of the uncanny in this playlist.
People who buy books tend to like books. Therefore books praising books tend to sell well. Many people have worked this out. Books about books, stories about stories. Some of them earn their subject matter; most do not. We see here trotted out once again the old prayer: your words will outlive you, and through them, you will outlive yourself. I wonder how many of its preachers believe it. I wonder how many cling to it. But even more important here is the therapeutic quality of storytelling (the truth will set you free), for both Vida and Margaret. I would have liked to see this developed further, but I fear this is beyond Setterfield.
While I was unsurprised to learn that The Thirteenth Tale is Margaret's biography of Vida Winter, I was completely taken aback by the revelation
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A love letter to gothic tales, if you love the Brontes but are itching for something modern you’ll probably quite like it. I struggle with stories framed within stories, but it is also a hallmark of the genre. It was engrossing and eerie and maybe only slightly too long.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Gripping
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Grief, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Incest, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Abandonment
Well... I gave this book a 4 star because I liked the over all idea of the plot and thought it was creative that way...
BUT... I did have a few problems with this book. The most aggravating to me was the way the author wrote. Her style and flow felt very stiff and tedious. Sometimes it felt like the characters would come to certain conclusions or understandings without clueing the reader in on it. It left me feeling confused at certain points in the story. Then there were other parts of the story that were just too predictable and felt flat.
I like the story, but don't think I would pick up another book by the author. Just didn't like her style, and while the story had exciting moments, the style just kind of took the wind out of the sails for me.
BUT... I did have a few problems with this book. The most aggravating to me was the way the author wrote. Her style and flow felt very stiff and tedious. Sometimes it felt like the characters would come to certain conclusions or understandings without clueing the reader in on it. It left me feeling confused at certain points in the story. Then there were other parts of the story that were just too predictable and felt flat.
I like the story, but don't think I would pick up another book by the author. Just didn't like her style, and while the story had exciting moments, the style just kind of took the wind out of the sails for me.
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes