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My cousin e-mailed me a few weeks ago with a book recommendation, The Thirteenth Tale a debut novel by Diane Setterfield.

I waited until my leave started and then headed for the new Claremont library. The book was the first I saw as walked in – on the recommended books shelf. I grabbed it although there was no one else close by!

The Thirteenth tale is the fictional story of a famous writer Vida Winter who near the end of her life asks the daughter of an antique bookstore owner to write her biography. The book’s title refers to a missing story in an anthology of short stories she wrote as a young writer.

Veda is haunted by her past and seems to want someone to discover the truth of her story, which she never told anyone and somehow be able to die in peace.

Margaret Lea is the biographer, who is also haunted by the secret of her own birth. She is told by Ms Winter to not ask questions, but to listen to the story from beginning to end. She however does some background investigations of her own and discovers parts of the story on her own.

The story she is told is about twins and about a haunted house.

For most of the book I was engrossed with the storytelling, but the Jane Eyre references irritated, I felt it was overdone and unnecessary, making the story seem literary pretentious.

I started off enjoying the book, especially the writing style. At first I could not put it down, but closer to the end the unraveling mystery no longer held my attention and I had to struggle to finish it.

Readers who enjoy storytelling with , a clean beginning, middle and ending and heroines that have fainting spells, would probably enjoy this story more. I was sort of reminded of the book Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews.