| Margaret Lea, unmarried bookworm and sister to a dead twin is summonsed to the home of the reclusive writer, Vida Winter, to write her biography. Vida Winter lives in a remote Heathcliffian setting on the Yorkshire Moors and the book is filled with parallels from Wuthering Heights - a forced overnight stay due to a snowstorm, a diary, ghosts at the window, the jealousy of siblings.
Vida lays down the rules for revealing her life story - she will tell it in the proper order with no looking ahead, no questions and no cheating. And so the tale begins. It begins as a straightforward, if slightly ikky tale, but as it progresses it becomes tangled and mysterious.
Diane Setterfield is a wonderful storyteller who manages to mislead, beguile and entice, all the while maintaining the tension and the desire to learn the truth. I almost figured it out but there was one final twist that I never anticipated. A great read.
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