In this novel, Vida Winter, a hugely popular English writer, has commissioned Margaret Lea to write her biography. Vida's story quickly overshadows Margaret's, but there is one key aspect of Margaret's life that pervades her reaction to Vida's tale. Margaret has discovered that she had a twin whose death shortly after her birth has left Margaret's mother too bereaved to love her remaining daughter. In fact, Vida hooks Margaret into the job by suggesting that hers, too, is a story of twins. Vida's real name is Adeline March, and the fate of her twin, Emmeline, is unknown for most of the novel. The girls' mother dies in a mental institution, and the twins show signs of being afflicted as well, or maybe their lack of parenting has just made them wild. Setterfield has spun a really good yarn here, complete with a foundling, a fire, a murder made to look like an accident, possible ghosts, and a twist. The title stems from the fact that Vida's first short story collection was supposed to have included 13 stories, but the collection's title had to be changed because it was published with only twelve. The thirteenth is obviously her own personal story, which is even more unbelievable than the preposterous stuff she routinely doles out to interviewers. The only thing really lacking is romance, at least of the conventional kind, and the author tosses in a bit of that as sort of an unnecessary afterthought at the end.
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