What is Danielle Teller reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Danielle Teller, author of All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella’s Stepmother.

Her entry begins:

As a child, I was a bookworm. Then I grew up, got a job, had kids, and only had time and energy to read on airplanes or the rare beach vacation. Now that I’m a writer, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do! My reading diet is eclectic; besides books I choose for pleasure, I also read for research, book club, because-someone-told-me-to, and I listen to audiobooks while I cook or run errands.

I’m currently reading Circe by Madeline Miller. It’s the story of the goddess Circe, most famous for bewitching Odysseus’s men in Homer's Odyssey. I’m a fan of Greek mythology, and it’s refreshing to see all of the gods and heroes through the eyes of a female character for a change! The language is beautiful and the magic thrilling. It’s rare for me not to...[read on]

About All the Ever Afters, from the publisher:

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."

Visit Danielle Teller's website.

Writers Read: Danielle Teller.

--Marshal Zeringue