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The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Fiction: Contemporary. Audio from Simon and Schuster Audio. Published in 2006. 15 hours, 40 minutes. Read by Bianca Amato and Jill Tanner.Purchased from Audible.com.

I needed a book for a road trip, and chose this audiobook because it was listed on Audible's Best of 2006 list. I can see why they listed it there. Not only did it have book lovers as characters, it kept me guessing and even surprised me a couple of times. I fell asleep listening to it the other night, sleeping lightly but not really registering where the story was going. There was a twist in the story line and my subconscious was paying enough attention that I instantly woke up and wondered what on earth had happened to get the story to that point. Needless to say I started listening to it again once I got up in the morning, very intrigued to learn what had happened.

Publisher's summary:
All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's beloved collection of stories, long famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale. The enigmatic Winter has always kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she summons a biographer to tell the truth about her extraordinary life: Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth remains an ever-present pain.

Disinterring the life she meant to bury for good, Vida mesmerizes Margaret with the power of her storytelling. Hers is a tale of gothic strangeness, featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, and a devastating fire. Struck by a curious parallel between their stories, Margaret demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them.

The Thirteenth Tale is a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter, and in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.

Online book shopping:
Powell's: The Thirteenth Tale
amazon.co.uk: The Thirteenth Tale
amazon.com: The Thirteenth Tale
Audible.com: The Thirteenth Tale

Christian Audio Free Download - January 07

Just a few more days to download this month's free audio from ChristianAudio.com. This month it is Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray.

This book-simple and powerful is the result of Murray's passionate exploration of the issue of surrender: why it's seemingly impossible and yet completely necessary.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

Fiction. Paperback from Time Warner Books. Published in 2003. 210 pages. Purchased at Waterstone's at Gatwick Airport, London, UK.

This book, by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie is my book club selection for this month. I read Tuesdays With Morrie a while back and don't really remember getting any profound insights out of it, so I did not expect any overly weighty revelations in the reading of this book. It's a very short book, and easy to read. I don't know that it necessarily taught me anything I did not know, but it is a good reminder that we can not always know the "why" of things.

As to Albom's presentation of heaven as a place where you meet up with people from your life and things get explained to you before you go on to your rest - who knows, really? It would greatly surprise me for it to be that way. But, it can be whatever God wants it to be and I'll be happy to be there.

Publisher's summary:
"All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time...."

On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie, a lonely war veteran, dies in a tragic accident trying to save a little girl froma falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his - and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.

Online book shopping:
Powell's: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
amazon.co.uk: The Five People You Meet In Heaven
amazon.com: The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Audible.com: The Five People You Meet in Heaven