I have finished book #3. It was a re-read because I'm still checking out some of your suggestions and haven't found anything I wanted to dive into yet. Plus, this is one of my favorite recent books and it's making me crazy that the author doesn't have any other work for me to read.
The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield)
If you like mysteries with a hint of ghost story, this is a great book. Vida Winter, a prolific author, is dying. Throughout her life, people have asked for her personal story and she has always told them a story, though she has never told the truth. Since she knows her time is limited, she summons Margaret Lea, a young historical biographer, to make a record of her story. Her story is fascinating - it involves a privileged family and their ruin. At the center are the Angelfield twins. Though Vida does tell the truth, there are still many gaps in her story that require Margaret to do some sleuthing.
Overall, it's a really great book. I don't often reread books but this has been on my re-read shelf since I first put it down. I expect I'll read it again in the future. There's a lot of action, a lot of confusion, a lot of muddled history. It's so beautifully written that I find it hard to put down once I start reading it. If Setterfield's long delay between releases results in a follow-up as amazing as her debut, it will be worth the wait.
I'll award this a rating of Even Better the Second Time Around.
Next up? Reading the first chapters of some of the books you suggested in my last post so I can decide what I want to sink my teeth into.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I'll be interested to hear what you delve into next!
If you like spooky stories, try The Pond by Tamera Lawrence. The story is loosely based on an actually event that occurred in our area (Reading, PA), but the story itself is fiction.
Oh, you'll find it on amazon.com if you're interested.
I loved loved loved this book! And I have always wanted to find others like it. A deliciously good ghost story is The Ghost Writer by John Harwood if you haven't read that yet.
Always nice when you find a book that gets better with every time you read it!
Post a Comment