⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Lady Tremaine is a brilliant and unexpectedly moving retelling of Cinderella, told from the stepmother’s point of view. This novel begins with the stepmother (Ethel) as a young girl and follows her through two marriages, two widowhoods, and the relentless struggle to secure safety and stability for her children, carrying the story well beyond the infamous royal ball where the prince makes his choice.
What makes this book so compelling is how fully it stands on its own. Even without any familiarity with the fairy tale, this would work beautifully as historical fiction. It vividly captures how precarious women’s lives were, especially when financial security depended entirely on husbands, titles, and marriages that could vanish overnight. Ethel’s choices, often judged harshly in the original tale, are reframed here as acts of fierce, sometimes desperate, maternal love.
Ethel is not softened into a saint, but she is rendered deeply human. Her determination to protect her daughters (even her prickly, resistant stepdaughter) drives every decision she makes, no matter the personal cost. This reimagining asks readers to reconsider who gets labeled a villain, and why, and it does so with empathy, emotional weight, and real narrative momentum.
Smart, emotionally rich, and surprisingly tender, Lady Tremaine transforms a familiar story into something fresh and powerful, reminding us that survival itself can look like cruelty when history leaves women no good choices.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion. And to @laura.tremaine
for adding this to the @secretstuffbylauratremaine Book Club schedule this year, otherwise I might not have been interested in reading because I didn’t really know what it was about.
Bessie Carter was the perfect voice for the narration of this story.
Holly Reads Too Much 