The Thirteenth Tale

"I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must me said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearn for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one every expects to be fulfilled. And during this time, these days when I read all day and half the night, when I slept under a counterpane strewn with books, when my sleep was black and dreamless and passed in a flash and I woke to read again-the lost joys of reading returned to me. Miss Winter restored to me the virginal qualities of the novice reader, and then with her stories she ravished me"- The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, is the story of a world famous author known for her mystery as much as her writing. Aging and sick, Vida Winter decides to finally open up about the mystery of her life and share the truth of her past, and choses to do so with biographer Margaret Lea. Driven by the ghosts of her own past, Lea reluctantly agrees to work with Miss Winter, and together the women confront their secrets.
It was phenomenal. It was magical and beautifully poetic. Twenty pages in, I knew that I loved it. I had hardly any idea what the story was going to be, but the writing in itself already had me hooked. I wanted to read it during every spare minute that I had and when I had less than 100 pages left, I was sorry it was going to end.
As a reader, I love language. I love words that roll beautifully off the tongue. In The Thirteenth Tale, Setterfield creates music with her word choice, and I found myself rereading sentences out loud just because I loved the sound of them. Both the writing and the story were captivating, and very Jane Eyre-esque. It filled you with questions and remained steadily unpredictable. When I got my answers, I wanted to start over from the beginning to piece it all together.
I fell in love with The Thirteenth Tale. It is one of those books that you need to mourn the end of. One where you cannot begin a new book, because you are still lost in its world. It is a story that will stay with you for a very long time.

The Girl Who Came Home

After reading On The Road, I was eager to step away from the renowned award winners and pick up something I found on my own. I was drawn to The Girl Who Came Home for two reasons: the cover photo of the Titanic and it's strategical placement on the sale rack.
Due to my love of history, I have always been fascinated by the Titanic. When I was a little girl, I took out book after book about the ship from the library. Children's picture books that depicted the inside of the ship, history books filled with archival photos, and of course, every Dear America book I could find. I am fascinated by the mystery and romance of such a horrible tragedy.
My interest in Titanic has not faded since I was that little girl in the library, so when I saw it's picture on the front cover of The Girl Who Came Home, I didn't even need to think about it. It was already in my basket.
As you can assume, The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor is about a seventeen year old Irish girl named Maggie Murphy who boards the Titanic for New York along with 13 others from her village. Devastated and traumatized by her experience, she doesn't speak of it for 70 years. The story then flashes forward to 1982, when an 87 year old Maggie decides to share her story with her journalist great-granddaughter.
I love this book. Loved it. It was full of mystery, and full of emotion. From the very beginning you wonder who survives and why Maggie's story is shrouded in such secrecy. No surprise, but I cried. Hard. I read it in a waiting room and was happy I was alone so no one could see me sobbing into the pages like a lunatic. What makes it so powerfully moving is that it really happened. Wives really were torn from their husbands, children separated from their mothers, sisters from their brothers. I could not for a second imagine having to walk away from my loved ones like that. It is heartwrenching and devastating.
I was also fascinated to learn that The Girl Who Came Home was inspired by a real group of people on the Titanic. The Addergoole Fourteen was a group of Irish emmigrants that traveled from County Mayo in Ireland. Eleven of the fourteen died aboard the ship, amounting to the largest loss of life from one region. Although names have been changed, Maggie Murphy and her companions are based on these fourteen.
I absolutely recommend The Girl Who Came Home. It was a beautiful depiction of a tragic event. The characters are relatable and likable, and for a nearly 400 page book, it was a quick and easy read.
It is often easy to remember the tragedy of the Titanic as an event in time or an epic movie, but The Girl Who Came Home reminds you of all the 1,517 real people that lost their lives. Those real men, women, and children that had families, personalities, and dreams. Hazel Gaynor did a great job in bringing them back to life, and keeping their memory alive.