The thirteenth tale

Margaret Lea gets a letter from one of the most famous authors of the day, the mysterious Vida Winter, whose popularity as a writer has been in no way diminished by her reclusiveness.

Somewhat anxiously, the equally reclusive Margaret travels to Yorkshire to meet her subject - and Vida starts to tell her tale.

It is one of gothic strangeness featuring the March family; her mother, the beautiful and wilful Isabelle, who had a powerful hold on her father and brother, and the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline.

But as a biographer she deals in fact not fiction, and she doesn't entirely trust Vida's account.

She goes to check up on the family, visit their old home and piece together the story in her own way.

What she discovers on her journey to the truth chills the blood ...