Must Read: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

If you work with me regularly chances are I've already tried to foist this book upon you. I've been telling everyone about it. If this book were makeup and I were a Mary Kay salesperson, I'd have the pink Cadillac by now. You might have seen it listed on Pearl's Picks a couple of months ago. I heard about from a normally articulate friend who couldn't describe it without flailing and mumbling incoherently.

This is a story about stories; about lies and half-truths and the actual truths underneath. We follow along with Margaret Lea, a bookish biographer and Jane Eyre buff as she is requested by aging famous novelist Vida Winter to write her biography. Vida Winter is a fascinating character, at once snarky and brash but also vulnerable. She has told her life story to nineteen interviewers previously, and every version (all different) has been a lie. In the sunset of her life she decides to tell the whole truth and nothing but. However, to quote Oscar Wilde, the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Miss Winter's story unfolds piece by piece, and as Margaret tries to connect the dots and discover the real sequence of this complex life, she has to face repressed demons of her own.

This is the kind of book that you'll be thinking about for weeks. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I'm not usually one for rereading things, but after finishing this one the ending threw me for such a loop I started it over again immediately. The atmosphere created is deliciously spooky.

Highly recommended. :)