A review by sbez05
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

5.0

This book is the reason I'm still awake when I should have gone to bed hours ago. "One more chapter!" I absolutely could not put this down. I was positively fascinated with Vida Winters and her story. I was slightly less impressed with the actual narrator of the story (if you can call her that) but all of the characters were well developed. I saw this described as a gothic mystery (thanks Becky!) and that's a fantastic description. This is an incredibly dark, compelling story that grabs you and won't let you go until the last page. Well ... actually, I could have done without the very last chapter (the post script) only because it felt a bit contrived and not entirely fitting with the rest of the story.

There were a few other things that nagged at me in this book but in the interest of not spoiling it for anyone, I won't post them here. The few things that bothered me almost made me mark this one a four-star read, but then I figured that any book that keeps you reading for hours after you promised yourself you'd go to bed can't be anything less than a five-star.