Dear Reader: How Rachel Hochhauser Wrote The Wicked Stepmother a New Happily Ever After
Lady Tremaine author Rachel Hochhauser on the pivotal moment that shaped how she viewed Cinderella's most notorious villain.
Dear Reader,
Lady Tremaine came to me in a hospital waiting room.
It was during a difficult year for my family. My husband became suddenly and seriously ill—a brain abscess—and what followed was a long stretch of caretaking, medical appointments, and single-parenting our toddler while continuing to work full time. We spent months moving in and out of doctors’ offices, living with uncertainty, exhaustion, and the recalibration that happens when someone you love is no longer well. It was during one of those appointments, blearily scrolling on my phone, that I came across an image of Cinderella’s evil stepmother.
Like many women my age, I grew up loving Cinderella—aching for my own happily ever after and identifying with the story’s namesake. But this time, looking at the stepmother, I didn’t see a villain motivated by harm. I saw myself: a woman motivated by care, doing whatever she could to survive. A mother.
I could not stop thinking about the many ways women fight to protect those they love, and how this intersects with—or more often fails to intersect with—the stories we pass down, especially to girls. I could not let go of picking at the fairytale message I had absorbed so completely as a child: that if you’re beautiful and nice, you just might be lucky enough to be picked by a prince. That safety, and love, arrive from the outside.
Lady Tremaine is my answer to those questions. It reframes the Cinderella story from the perspective of the so-called evil stepmother, but it’s far more than a retelling. The novel plays inside the familiar beats of the fairytale before breaking free of them entirely. It’s a love story—but not the kind you expect—and an attempt to imagine a different version of happily ever after.
Bringing this book to life has been its own kind of happy ending. My husband, thankfully, is doing well. We now, fittingly, have two little girls. And in publishing a novel, especially this one, I’ve been able to fulfill a dream of my own, which is all the better because I did it myself.
I’m so pleased to share the version of Cinderella I wish I’d been raised on—and one I’m immensely proud to give my daughters. I hope you love Lady Tremaine.
- Rachel Hochhauser