The Thirteenth Tale

In The Thirteenth Tale, Margaret Lea is a young biographer with a life as plain and organized as her antiquarian bookstore. Her passion is for the forgotten lives of others, not her own. But everything changes when she receives a letter from the world's most celebrated and enigmatic novelist, Vida Winter. Known for her prolific body of work and a history of spinning fantastical lies about her past, Vida has decided, as she lies dying, to finally tell her one, true story.

Summoned to Vida's decaying, gothic mansion, Margaret begins to listen to a life full of astonishing and heartbreaking secrets, including the existence of a lost twin sister and a tragic event that haunts the family. As Vida’s narrative unfolds, Margaret finds herself drawn into a haunting mystery that echoes her own unspoken past. The book is a mesmerizing tribute to the power of storytelling, a tale about the lies we tell ourselves and others, and the profound, often chilling, truth that hides in the shadows. It is a hauntingly beautiful, gothic tale that will keep you guessing until the very last page.