About the Author

Diane Setterfield is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Thirteenth Tale, and a former academic, specializing in twentieth-century French literature, particularly the works of Andre Gide. She lives in Oxford, England.

Reviews

Former academic Setterfield pays tribute in her debut to Bront? and du Maurier heroines: a plain girl gets wrapped up in a dark, haunted ruin of a house, which guards family secrets that are not hers and that she must discover at her peril. Margaret Lea, a London bookseller's daughter, has written an obscure biography that suggests deep understanding of siblings. She is contacted by renowned aging author Vida Winter, who finally wishes to tell her own, long-hidden, life story. Margaret travels to Yorkshire, where she interviews the dying writer, walks the remains of her estate at Angelfield and tries to verify the old woman's tale of a governess, a ghost and more than one abandoned baby. With the aid of colorful Aurelius Love, Margaret puzzles out generations of Angelfield: destructive Uncle Charlie; his elusive sister, Isabelle; their unhappy parents; Isabelle's twin daughters, Adeline and Emmeline; and the children's caretakers. Contending with ghosts and with a (mostly) scary bunch of living people, Setterfield's sensible heroine is, like Jane Eyre, full of repressed feeling-and is unprepared for both heartache and romance. And like Jane, she's a real reader and makes a terrific narrator. That's where the comparisons end, but Setterfield, who lives in Yorkshire, offers graceful storytelling that has its own pleasures. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

"A book that you wake in the middle of the night craving to get back to . . . . Timeless, charming, a pure pleasure to read . . . . The Thirteeth Tale is a book to savor a dozen times."--The San Diego Union-Tribune
"The shared literary landscape that The Thirteenth Tale re-creates with lush precision takes us back to a time when reading could seem more compelling than life."--The Columbus Dispatch
"Readers will be mesmerized by this story-within-a-story tinged with the eeriness of Rebecca and the willfulness of Jane Eyre. The author . . . . leaves no strand untucked at the surprising and satisfying conclusion."--Booklist
"A novel brimming with atmosphere and labyrinthine plotting that recalls the gothic-like chillers by Daphne du Maurier and Joyce Carol Oates, spiced with flavors reminiscent of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The language is rich, the elements intriguing."--The Sacramento Bee