All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella's Stepmother

by Danielle Teller

Overview

In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous reimagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella’s "evil" stepmother.

We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we?

As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. . . .

A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress’s apprentice when she is only ten years old. Using her wits and ingenuity, she escapes her tyrannical matron and makes her way toward a hopeful future. When teenaged Agnes is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant, she is transformed by love for her child. Once again left penniless, Agnes has no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind. Her new position is nursemaid to Ella, an otherworldly infant. She struggles to love the child who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, eventually, the celebrated princess who embodies everyone’s unattainable fantasies. The story of their relationship reveals that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises.

Lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceptive, All the Ever Afters explores the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, all the while showing us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound, and ultimately more important, truth than the ideal of "happily ever after."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062798206
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/22/2018
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	1,050,412
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.21(d)

About the Author

Danielle Teller received her medical training at McGill University, Brown University, and Yale University. She has held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University. In 2013, Danielle pursued her childhood dream of being a writer. She is the author of one book of nonfiction, Sacred Cows: The Truth About Divorce and Marriage, and has written numerous columns for Quartz. She lives with her husband, Astro Teller, and their four children in Palo Alto, California. All the Ever Afters is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

03/05/2018
Teller’s charmed debut gives life to the brave and resourceful Agnes, better known as one of fairy tales’ most reviled villains—Cinderella’s evil stepmother. Born a poor servant, Agnes works her way from laundress to running her own ale house while struggling to provide and care for her daughters as a single mom. When tragedy strikes her family, Agnes is forced to return to the manor where she was first a servant. No longer a scared, helpless girl, she becomes much more than a maid, caring for the moody, unstable lady of the house, Lady Alba, nurturing her neglected daughter, Ella, and turning the manor’s finances around with her head for business. Scandal ensues after Lady Alba dies and the lord marries Agnes to continue raising his daughter and managing the manor. When Ella falls in love with the prince, she can’t bear to leave her stepmother and -sisters behind and takes them to live with her at the castle. Although Ella is welcomed, stories at court swirl around Agnes and her daughters. Teller pulls off the spellbinding trick of turning an easy-to-hate character into a strong and conscientious female lead. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (May)

Publishers Weekly

A fascinating reimagining of the original tale. . . .Readers will feel empathy for Agnes, consider various misunderstandings and think twice before labeling her as wicked.

Associated Press Staff

05/01/2018
Teller's debut novel is a more realistic addition to the ever-growing genre of fairy-tale retellings. It's told from the point of view of Cinderella's stepmother, Agnes, beginning with her childhood. There is nothing romantic about this adaptation; Agnes's life is full of turmoil as she bounces around fulfilling different servant roles. Though she is granted a reprieve from servitude after the birth of her children, she quickly finds herself back in service as a wet nurse for Ella, who will eventually become her stepdaughter, Cinderella. There is much more warmth between Ella and Agnes than in the usual retellings. However, Agnes is still harsh; she despises Ella and lashes out at her because she feels that Ella is ungrateful. Ultimately, Agnes understands that she has projected much of cruelty she has endured onto Ella. The narrative makes up for its lack of magical whimsy by exploring the complexities of relationships. VERDICT A solid addition to any collection where fractured fairy tales are popular, but not an essential purchase.—Melanie Leivers, Palm Beach Country Library System, FL

School Library Journal

2018-03-05
Cinderella's "evil" stepmother gets her say in Teller's (Sacred Cows: The Truth About Divorce and Marriage, 2014) historically grounded first novel.Agnes, who will become first the beautiful Ella's nurse and then her stepmother, grows up in a British peasant family. Because her widower father can't support three children, she's sent to work in the laundry of the nearby manor. After years of hard labor, she makes her way to the local abbey, where her duties are a little lighter and where she becomes pregnant out of wedlock. Thrown out of the abbey, she finds work as an alewife and soon begins brewing her own ale. When her common-law husband dies, she's no longer permitted to operate the alehouse because she's a woman, and so she makes her way back to the manor, where she's put to work minding young Ella, whose father, the perpetually drunken lord of the manor, becomes besotted with her. Teller's tale finds a realistic explanation for each of the elements of the Cinderella story: Ella's "fairy godmother," for example, is the powerful but not supernatural Mother of the abbey, who looks down at Agnes because she's a peasant. As for the "ugly stepsisters," one of the sweet-natured and hardworking girls is mocked because her skin, like her father's, is dark, while the other has scars left by a bout of smallpox. Ella is a decidedly minor figure in a story that only tangentially touches on hers. Teller anchors her novel in well-researched details of medieval life, and if her prose doesn't reach the level of poetry, it abounds in sensory details, from the "sticky swelter" of the busy manor kitchen to the "pink roses, yellowwort, purple foxglove, mauve centaury" in the abbey garden. The author's understanding of the severe challenges posed by gender and class in this society adds depth to the story.A provocative revision of this familiar fairy tale.

Kirkus Reviews

Teller’s novel is a powerfully written rendition of the Cinderella story… Tells a complex tale of a love that forms through patient nurturing and by just being present.

Book Club Babble

Sometimes you’ve only heard one part of the story. Cinderella’s famously maligned stepmother, Agnes, gets to tell her own side in this clever take on the fairy tale.

New York Post

A fascinating reimagining of the original tale. . . .Readers will feel empathy for Agnes, consider various misunderstandings and think twice before labeling her as wicked.

Lisa Ko

As in the best literary inversions (e.g., Gregory Maguire’s Wicked), Teller demonstrates the flaws and fine points of characters on both sides.

Washington Post

Teller set aside an established medical career as a pulmonary doctor and researcher five years ago to write full time. Nevertheless, she plays surgeon still, extracting the (formerly) villainous stepmother as protagonist and skillfully excising the classic story’s myths, magic and misconceptions.

San Jose Mercury News

A fun, fantastical story with a strong heroine. . . Inspired me and reminded me that how we confront adversity reveals profound truths about who and what we are.

First for Women

Teller’s reimagined tale. . .stands out among the best. . . . Fairy-tale aficionados will adore Teller’s complex, touching retelling of this classic story of womanhood, perseverance, and familial love, in which she strikes an ideal balance between familiar and fresh.

Booklist (starred review)

Teller woos readers into taking a better, more open-eyed look at a character that’s been maligned for centuries, one with strength and who’s worthy of stunned sympathy.

Guam Daily Post

As in the best literary inversions (e.g., Gregory Maguire’s Wicked), Teller demonstrates the flaws and fine points of characters on both sides.

Washington Post

Sometimes you’ve only heard one part of the story. Cinderella’s famously maligned stepmother, Agnes, gets to tell her own side in this clever take on the fairy tale.

New York Post

12/01/2017
The besmirched stepmother of new princess Cinderella, poor Agnes defends herself by telling her story, which includes an impoverished childhood, enforced servitude by age ten, seduction by an older man, love for the child she bore, and, finally, being hired as nursemaid to little Ella, whose father she eventually marries.

Library Journal

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