We all know the story of Cinderella ... or do we? Her stepmother, Agnes, has privately recorded the true story. A peasant born into serfdom, forced into servitude as a laundress's apprentice when she is only ten years old, Agnes was seduced by an older man while a teenager and became pregnant. She had no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind, where her new position is nursemaid to Ella. 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. -- Adapted from jacket.