Ah, now this book.......as I mentioned the other day, it may well go down as one of my all-time favorites.  It came out in 2006, but I hadn't even heard about it until last week in Good Reads.  The author is British, from Yorkshire and this was her debut fiction.

It is the story of a reclusive author, Vida Winter.  She was famous for her stories and just as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale.  She's spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself--all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret.

Now she's old and ill and she contacts biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, has been a constant pain.  Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winters story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

The novel has touches of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

The book jacket says the novel is "a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children."  I couldn't say it any better than that.  Because this book is most definitely ALL of that!

A book that actually has a beginning, a middle and an end.  The three parts are even labeled as such.  A story that certainly keeps you guessing but answers all the questions at the end. And a novel that brilliantly has all of the story making sense. 

In the beginning Miss Winters tells Margaret she cannot ask any questions, but rather must listen to her tell the story in sequence.  No jumping ahead.  No skipping parts.  Just telling the truth.  I couldn't help but feel that, for authors especially, there was a hidden meaning here.  In other words, even if we write fiction, we must tell the truth and we must do it in such a way that our readers don't feel cheated. 

This book had it all, in my opinion.  Mesmerizing characters, a plot that kept you guessing and made you wonder, brilliant prose and an ending filled with satisfaction.  If you love a great story, if you're a writer yourself, I think you'll very much enjoy this book.  My only sorrow is that it was released two years ago and I see nothing new on the horizon by this author.  So I'm very much hoping that Diane Setterfield is busily at work conjuring up another story for this devoted reader and fan.

See you here next time..................