The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Engaging? Haunting? Terrifying? How do I even begin to describe this book? It was like reading The Shadow of the Wind all over again and yet it brought back memories of much loved classics like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.If truth be told there was a little too much of Jane Eyre which became sightly annoying after a while. The elements of madness running in the family, the fire that kills and the Charlie and Isabelle affair shows that the author was deeply influenced by the Brontë sisters, which made it rather enjoyable.

One of the best things about the story is how wonderfully paced it is! You're reading a 450 paged novel and it hardly takes you any time at all to finish it even if you're in the middle of exams like I am. The story does however start to become slow in the middle but just when I started to think, 'There couldn't be more to this!' WHAM! Another twist!

What left me a little dissatisfied was the character of Margaret. She starts off wonderfully and you sympathise with her grief and loss but somewhere in the middle, she starts pitying herself way too much,becoming so repetitive that you're on the border of irritation. Also there were places where I had ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST in what she dreamt about, how she was summoned by Vida Winter that morning or what her past was like! Seriously! I am in the middle of something spine-chilling and suddenly, you decide it's time to talk about what happened when your father took you to a duck pond when you were twelve? A good attempt to prolong interest which may have worked for a lot of readers but made me impatient enough to the extent of skipping the chapter(not that I did it!).

Other than that, do I recommend it? Absolutely! I think everyone who enjoys reading would like this book. Moreover if you are a fan of gothic fiction like Catherine Morland, or have enjoyed Jane Eyre, The Woman in White, Wuthering Heights, Lady Audley's Secret, you will enjoy this book doubly because it is not only slightly inspired by them, but also contains references to the stories. DO NOT read it if you haven't read the classics, however. It may act as a spoiler for some of them as a lot of references, allusions and comparisons have been made in the story to them.

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