Ghosts of October
The past two days I’ve spent my time reading rather than doing my homework. Actually, it is more like several hours as I couldn’t put the book down. It was a mystery tale, gothic in its ambiance with just a slight touch of the chill you find in one of those Victorian ghost stories that I love. The book? The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
I read the blurb review about it. It is as I described, but it is more engrossing than that. When I get into a good book, I read it unendingly. I started on it around 11:00 o’clock Sunday night, put it down at five in the morning only to pick it back up this evening to finish it. It’s that good.
It starts with a mystery. Who is Vida Winter? The renowned author whose life has not been told even though several biographies have been written of her. Upon her last days she lets an book antiquarian tell the story of her life. The true story of her life.
She reveals the sinful beginnings of her father, his lust for her sister and the twins that were born to her. A sort of mania runs through the family from their father, to the siblings on down to the twins. There story and Vida Winter’s is told.
There is a ghost. A ghost of a girl. Dead? Or living? Not til the end do we know the true tragedy of it. And it is that tragedy that is haunting, but amazing.
It’s about family and there dark secrets. It’s about loss and reuinion. It’s about love and it always returns.
The author herself describes the book for those who like to read especially the Bronte ouevre. I am such a reader and it was a page turner. At last, something that was good story. And the story is all there is.
A+
