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A well crafted book can hold your life hostage for at the least the duration of the read and if exquistely written, the characters and plot will haunt you in a sweet aching way, lingering in your mind like the last truly beautiful holiday you had. Diane Setterfield has spun, in her debut literary thriller "The Thirteenth Tale", such a beautiful tale of suspense, love, deceit and human emotions that the reader is lifted up and carried into the depths of the ageless art of storytelling. As the character Margaret Lea so rightly put it - "It was like falling into water."

The plot is set into motion with Margaret, a bookseller's daughter, receiving a handwritten letter from the famous yet elusive writer Vida Winter inviting her to come to Winter's home to listen to her secret life story. As the letter explains, Winter has, for the last forty years, spun one strange tale after the other every time someone asked her about her life. Margaret arrives at Winter's, apprehensive, half-expecting yet another fabricated tale, ready to walk away and she almost did until the words pulled her back - "Once upon a time there were twins ---"

Those words let loose a tale so mesmerising and powerful that hours blurred while the twins Adeline and Emmeline spun the magic of their life, sprinkled with the obsessive, bordering on morbid, love of their uncle Charlie towards their mother Isabelle that was so much more than that of a brother. Twins have always been fascinating subject for writers and Setterfield seems to have conjured a winning formula of twins, goth, romance and intrigue, keeping the readers on the edge of the easychair.

The title of the novel stems from yet another enigmatic incident - Vida Winter comes out with a collection of stories "Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation" and as Margaret discovers early on it the book, there are only twelve stories in the book. There was no thirteenth tale!

What makes the story truly wonderful is the beautiful prose that delivers it. When I started reading the novel, I had a piece of paper to note down the page numbers of striking passages. Pretty soon I had abandoned the idea, there just were too many.

'You are at liberty to say nothing if that is what you want. But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grow pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you. ' Her eyes swivelled back to me. 'Believe me Magaret. I know.'

Setterfield 's love of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights shows through the novel with numerous quotes and references but Setterfield's characters though seemingly inspired by the goth and gloom, transcends these storylines to carve out their own path.

"The Thirteenth Tale" has received a lot of publicity and after reading the book, I have to say, it was warranted. If you don't mind drowning yourself in a captivating, beautifully written tale, go ahead and buy "The Thirteenth Tale". You won't regret the purchase.