LADY TREMAINE

by Rachel Hochhauser

Ever since reading Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and then Wicked by Gregory Maguire as a teenager, I’ve been obsessed with novels that reimagine fairytales. Typically, they blend historical fiction with a familiar plot and turn some element of the story on its head. So when Reece Witherspoon announced Lady Tremaine as her bookclub pick for March, I put it on hold at the library immediately.  And, wow, this book was just the grown-up version of Cinderella I didn’t know I needed.

Lady Tremaine tells the full, thrilling story of Cinderella’s evil stepmother, Etheldreda. As the daughter of a moderately successful brewer in a small village, her luck seems to change for the better when she marries the son of a local lord. Her life is also blessed with two daughters and she seems assured of living happily-ever-after. But when her husband dies suddenly, she and her daughters are left penniless. With her daughters’ best interests at heart, Etheldreda marries a second husband with a stand-offish young daughter of his own. When that husband also dies and she faces mounting debts, she does everything she can to get her daughters invited to a ball where the royal prince will choose a bride.

Hochhauser writes detailed, well-crafted characters and brings to life the complicated realities of a woman’s existence. The insane cleverness of Lady Tremaine is that she has taken the barest bones of this classic fairytale and filled it with unexpected life, historical context and incredible plot twists that will keep you reading late into the night. (Lily)