Being a Cinderella fan, I loved it! A real story about all kinds of love; family, motherly, animals and life.

Visceral, hard to put down.

I picked up this book thinking I would read yet another fairy tale of Cinderella that sounded familiar. I was wrong! This story will have you on the edge of your seat wanting to find out what happens. An excellent book that will leave you wanting this writer to take more fairy tales and weave them into stories with more vivid characters and plots.

Though this is her first published novel, it clearly demonstrates that Rachel Hochhauser has a gift for breathing not only life but soul into her work. Again and again, I found myself relating to Etheldreda on a visceral level - her struggles with women’s roles in society, her powerful yet controlled reactions to the painful reality of life in hidden poverty, and her deep feelings as a mother and stepmother. This telling is not without flaws, but it has enough strength to carry it over those pitfalls. Be prepared for a fantasy tale, as the ‘history’ is quite free and loose here. But that’s what we came for, right? A greatly improved Cinderella story, one with teeth and bones and genuine feeling. Lady Tremaine does not disappoint!