The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale

Diane Setterfield

Once you start, you will not want to put this down. The plot is wonderfully melodramatic and immensely gripping. Get yourself an open fire, an armchair and a box of chocolates - you won't move for hours.

Extract
'Tell me,' I began slowly, carefully. In the stories with the wizards it is always with the third wish that everything so dangerously won is disastrously snatched away. 'Tell me something that happened to you in the days before you changed your name, for which there exists a public record.' Educational successes, I was thinking. School sporting achievements. Those minor triumphs that are recorded for proud parents and for posterity.
Parallels
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • Il Trovatore by Verdi
  • Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier