Thank you for the opportunity to review this book!
It was by far my favorite book in the Villians series so far!
Those pesky Odd Sisters are at it again. Lady Tremain is tricked into giving up everything after the death of her husband. It is time the world hears her story and the blame is placed where it is due.
This story flowed well for me. The author did a great job of making my heart hurt for Lady Tremaine and what she is going through.

This story is a fantastic example of a twisted tale. I've read several books in this series, and this one is possibly my favorite. I'll probably revisit this series again in the future and I'll happily look forward to rereading this one.

*MILD SPOILERS* It ultimately left me feeling heartbroken, which shows just how much I was rooting for the main character to get her own happily ever after in the first place. The author really made me feel for someone that I thought I wouldn't be able to. I do wish I'd learned more about the brooch and the mentions of the curses surrounding it. I've read a few books in this series, but not all of them, and I wonder if having read all of them thus far would have answered those questions. Without having done so, I feel like there wasn't enough information as a standalone.

I received an eARC via Netgalley from Disney Hyperion in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much for the opportunity!

"I was lost in the past, and perhaps the future. I'm careful not to linger there too often for fear of being lost there forever."

*3.5 stars, rounded up*

In "Cold Hearted", we follow the other side of the Cinderella's story - the one of her evil stepmother. I believe Valentino managed to capture the correct before and after persona of Lady Tremaine in Cold Hearted and definitely made the before realistic and understandable. I have never thought I'd say this, but I feel BAD for Lady Tremaine, Cinderella's evil stepmother, after reading this book. Lady Tremaine is known for being one of the cruelest, coldest villains in Disney. However, Valentino allowed me to see what CAUSED her to be so evil. She was once a kind mother to her daughter's Anastasia and Drizella, but after her husband died she became lonely. Around 6 years after her husband's death, Lady Tremaine seeked companionship. When she met Cinderella's father, she thought he was perfect (although I hated this - love at first sight is such a terrible and unrealistic trope) - they seeked parent figures for their daughters and wanted love. When Cinderella's father turned out to be . . . how do I put this delicately . . . an a**hole, Lady Tremaine turned evil. She was just repaying what Cinderella's father did to her and her girls back to Cinderella. Although it was WRONG to do so, as Cinderella was clearly manipulated, I have never hated Cinderella so much in all my life (and she has NEVER been my favorite princess) - despite HER being what spurred the recounting of Lady Tremaine's story on in the first place.

How Valentino delivered this story was pretty good overall except for the same adjectives and verbs used, the long descriptions, inconsistencies, and the characters themselves. Surprisingly, there was a LOT of backstory at the beginning, which is usually bothersome, but it somehow worked for "Cold Hearted." I also enjoyed the third person omniscient point of view. On the downside, Valentino used the same words several times throughout the story, and I spotted them almost immediately. It's just something my writing brain goes off at. These words include "rattled," "stoic," "livid," "drifted," "amused/amusing," "by the book." One of the main phrases that was reused quite often was "that is a story for another time" or something along the lines of that. It just got a bit annoying. Another one was calling the women "handsome" which just didn't sit well with me. With just a little bit more research (and probably the help of a dictionary), Valentino could've given the reader a better experience with word diversity. In addition, there are long descriptions of locations used in the beginning, which made it a little difficult for me to get into.

Next, the way Valentino wrote Lady Tremaine. Overall, she was written well, but there were MANY instances where Tremaine would just trail off and get distracted easily by her own thoughts. Maybe this is purposeful, but I doubt it since it happened so frequently. Finally, the inconsistencies - there weren't many of these but the main one I took note of was how Lady Tremaine treated her daughters after only being at her friend's estate for two days - she was calling them "hellions" and "troublemakers" when she left and only two days later, she was calling them "my darlings." In such a short amount of time, there is NO way the whole purpose of Lady Tremaine's trip to her friend's estate was accomplished (to get away from her girls and reevaluate how she treats them).

Overall though, this was an enjoyable book and I'm glad I picked Cold Hearted up because it gave me such an interesting and different view of Cinderella's tale.

Beyond the very beginning (which I will explain next), I really liked the story. I tend to enjoy made-up, "origin" stories of villains, and so I was pleased with the book overall. It's fun to view well-known tales from their perspective.

I'm not sure why, but the beginning of the book almost seems to be written by a different author. While that is not the case, the writing is much better after an exchange between the fairies. I think the beginning of the step-mother's story could have begun sooner than it does, especially since the writing is, for some reason, much better. I also noticed that previous stories I was unaware of are referenced. I was under the impression that the tales could be read as stand-alone novels since they describe separate fairy tales, but I think it would have been helpful to have had a bit more context from other books in the series.

I received this book from Netgalley to review. I liked the book as I love seeing the villain’s perspective but this one did not entertain me like the other books in this series. I think it is definitely still a good book to read but not my favorite from this series. I really think my students will enjoy reading this so I plan on getting a copy for them to read in the classroom.

This was such a good quick read! We all know the story of Cinderella but do we know why Lady Tremaine was so cruel to her? This book answers why a sweet and kind woman like her can turn so cold hearted against someone she had been so excited to gain as a daughter.

A good book for Cinderella fans and Disney fans alike, this can be fun to show your young kids too that there are always two sides to every story.

(2.5 rounded up to 3) I honestly had such a hard time deciding on what I wanted to rate this book. I think that this is largely due to the fact that there were aspects of this book that I enjoyed, I think that this had the potential to be absolutely brilliant, but for me unfortunately it fell a little short. I think this is partly due to the fact that I found the book to not flow for me very well. I think that while the side stories about the fairly politics was interesting it sort of took away rather than added to the story. This is not to say that I don't think the fairies should have been included, its just more so that I think they took away at times instead of added to the story. I also for the pacing to be super fast and the pov switches especially at the end to be a bit disappointing as I wanted a bit more of Lady Tremaines story while she was actual evil and not just leading up to that point. I also had a hard time with the justifications in this story, it is almost as though the author did such a good job at making Lady Tremaine likable that I felt more empathy for her rather than contempt. I guess I just found her to be redeemable and was a bit sad that her downfall I didn't think what wholly justified. With all this being said I do really appreciate being given the chance to read this book, and I plan to read more from the author in the future, I think it was a matter of my own personal preference and I plan on telling others in my review to take my review as a grain of salt and to please try it out for themselves if they are interested. I am hopeful I will love another book from this author in the future:)

"She had fallen in love and traveled to a foreign land to start a new life, only to realize she had been tricked. She had endured years of abuse. And now a real fairy godmother was telling her she was, in fact, not the heroine of her own tale, but the villain in someone else's."

TL;DR: WUT did I just read.
An origin story for Lady Tremaine (of Disney's Cinderella) that attempts to...IDK. Give her a backstory? Make her sympathetic? It's unclear. It's a retelling/spinoff of the Cinderella story that doesn't really contribute much to the tale, bogged down by subpar, cringey writing. I am honestly 100% baffled by how many 5-star reviews this book has.

Vibes: Once Upon A Time meets Great Expectations and Rebecca -- but, like, C-list versions of those stories.

Character MVP: Honestly? No one. I felt very little for any of these characters; they were all very flat -- as fairy tale characters tend to be, but given that this is a novel, I expected more.

Verdict: I know this is part of a series, and, full disclosure, I haven't read any of the other books. I may go back and start at the beginning, because apparently the first ones are better...?
But this book *can* function as a stand-alone, although I imagine certain parts will make more sense in the context of the larger world that Valentino has constructed. And my frustrations don't stem from those "I don't get the full import" moments -- they stem from the characters/writing style and just the overall point of the story.

First -- I *love* retellings. I love fairy tales. I love Disney. I love all of these things and wanted to enjoy this book. But I also feel like my bar is perhaps a bit high when it comes to retellings. In grad school, I took a class on fairytale retellings and Cinderella was our case study: we looked at several of the fairy tale versions and how the tale evolved, picture book adaptations, middle-grade and YA novels. And the one thing we agreed on is that an effective retelling has to do "something" new with the story: tell it from the POV of a minor character (like Philip Pullman's I Was A Rat) or explain why Cinderella was so obedient (like Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted). Those sought to address some part of the story and explain it or transform it.

Here? I honestly don't know what the point was. At first, I thought Valentino was going to question the larger issues of fairy tales -- why stepmothers are always evil (because we can't vilify bio-moms, obviously) and engage with issues of predetermined endings based on arbitrary standards of morality (princess = good; stepmother = evil). But...she didn't. Because...

(2) Lady Tremaine is a textbook 'passive character.' *EVERYTHING* that happens, happens TO her; she has no agency, takes no action.
And at first, I also thought this was supposed to engender sympathy towards her -- she was a caring, kind, loving woman and she's not a villain!
But...she's kind of selfish, self-centered, and vain. She read like a teenager, instead of the middle-aged woman she was supposed to be. She made one decision -- to leave her daughters at home while she went on a vacation (because she was simply exhausted, even though she saw her kids for what? Like an hour a day? The rest of the time they were with their nanny) and then allowed herself to be manipulated into things. There are so many red flags along the way, but she never once slows things down and then is "surprised" and "shocked" at how unhappy she is. Really? The handsome guy who didn't actually propose to you and demanded you get on the next boat to go to him turned out NOT to be your happily ever after?
The matter of the cursed brooch just makes it worse: it effectively removes any agency from her decisions. She's cold and cruel because the thing is like a Horcrux -- amplifying her worst traits and drawing out the evil in her. It's not *really* who she is; she's affected by the brooch.

But then -- in the end, even though the Fairies and Witches basically admit that Cinderella's father is the real villain, they punish her anyway. So what's the point? There's no redemption arc or even a chance; she just goes all Miss Havisham and then "dies." She was initially (supposed to be) a good person, she got drawn into a predetermined role to be a villain despite that, and a cursed brooch made her even worse: which everyone acknowledged, but didn't seem to matter.
This was what I loved about Once Upon A Time -- and Regina's character especially (but also Hook): as ridiculous and campy as it got, the show really attempted to show how "evil isn't born, it's made," so that you understood *how* they became villains -- but it also showed how complex that was. Lana Parilla's Regina was the best character on the show because of the depth and nuance she brought to Regina -- even though she was a "villain," there was still good in her, which was fostered until it bloomed. (Ugh. That's a cheesy line. But the point is, the villains got chances to be good. Here? No chance for Lady Tremaine.)

*sigh*

But Anastasia and Drizella, who don't have much of a presence and have even less to redeem them -- they get their happily ever after? Why?

I wasn't a fan of how the three of them (including Cinderella) were depicted. I actually don't think the 1950 animated Cinderella is as much of a pushover as scholars/critics sometimes make her out to be; she's got a bit of a sassy side and she rebels in her own quiet way.

But here? She's...flat. She's either impossibly innocent & insufferably obedient or she knows of her role in the story and what has to happen for her to marry the king. Either way -- she's presented as spoiled; her father gives her everything she wants after her mother's death the same way Lady Tremaine spoils her daughters. But Cinderella turns out fine, and Anastasia and Drizella are horrible spoiled brats. But, if Lady Tremaine is kind and Sir Richard is cruel, how did that happen? What does that say?

At least it was a quick and easy read...even if we still don't know Lady Tremaine's first name.

I thoroughly enjoyed Cold Hearted! I have a soft spot for fairytale retellings of any kind and this one did not disappoint. Reading this tale from a “Villains” point of view was extremely refreshing, as we are so used to hearing the story of Cinderella focused solely on Cinderella herself. I found myself rooting for Lady Tremaine throughout this entire book, hoping she would somehow get her own happily ever after after seeing the heartbreak and setbacks she had to deal with throughout the book.

I’ve enjoyed every book in this series and this one is no different. I I would definitely recommend this book if you’re a Disney fan or if you enjoy reading stories from the villains point of view.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for this honest review!

Cold Hearted, Serena Valentino

Publication date: June 29, 2021

You have no doubt seen these eye-catching books in your favourite book store, on instagram, on shelves of young and old alike. Serena Valentino is back with her latest installment of the Disney Villains franchise, Cold Hearted.

My kids and I love this series as we get to explore notorious villains from iconic Disney stories in a new light. The re-imagining of their backstory is fascinating and really lets us dig into perspective taking. Are they really all bad? Rarely things can be boiled down with this naive simplicity. What happened in their journey? How did they get here? And, by here - the revered and feared evil stepmother of that girl who kept losing her slipper and had a way with mice and root vegetables.

Cold Hearted is a fascinating journey that is not to be missed! Take it from my kiddo’s - she’s misunderstood, imperfect, cruel and broken. There is more than meets the eye with Lady Tremaine - a widowed single mother raising 2 stubborn teenage girls who just happens to fall for literally her knight in shining armour. Sure there are a few hiccups but Lady Tremaine is a survivor and she’s not going to go down without a fight.

This summer, gather the family around and hold up your version of that infamous glass slipper to discover the many facets of a truly intriguing character.

Great premise, and will definitely return to it some time in the future. But I definitely feel like I’m missing a lot of context, as I was unaware of how interconnected the Villains books actually are.

A heart was not born cold but made cold. Lady Tremaine could have a happily ever but she gave Cinderella her happiness in a wicked sense. Without Lady Tremaine’s desire to be married once again, Cinderella would have been a spoiled kid who remained afraid of her own father. This book is 8th in the series. The composition and word choices of the book established high level of thrill for the readers. Highly Recommended!

I wanted to enjoy this one, but unfortunately it was a miss for me. This was my first time reading this author, and my first in this series. The writing was enjoyable and made me nostalgic, while reading I kept picturing myself watching the cartoon classic Cinderella. Throughout I wanted to go back and watch certain scenes and compare them to what I was reading. What was missing for me was the overall depth to Lady Tremaine. I found her to be a very boring villain in this story. I was not really interested or invested in her past, which made it difficult to enjoy the book. I also felt her daughters were glazed over and there should have been more written about there characters, The story felt like it was lacking more, so overall it was a bit rushed and fell short. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I love it. I love it. I love it. This was everything I needed. My only wish was that I had read it closer to Halloween because it just feels like a book to read in fall!

I finished the book in one go, as per usual Serena sucks you into her world and doesn't let you go.

Cinderella is my favorite classic Disney film so I had high expectations, especially with being a long time lover of this series.

I had some issues with certain characters having different personalities than originally described in the film but it starts making sense later on, so in the end, I wasn't all too bothered with these changes as they were needed for the story to take off.

The story in itself brought a new light to Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, and Drizella, and I'm thankful for that. They really deserved it. I was also glad to see the Odd Sisters, Fairy Godmother, and Nanny again! They always give the stories so much more dimension.

However, I wish the book was a bit longer, the ending felt a little bit rushed and unfinished to me but that could also just be because I never want to put down any of Serena's books ever.

I'm looking forward to the next installment in this series!

Thanks again for another amazing book, Serena.

3.5 Stars - I just love this series. Sure, some books are better than others, but as a whole, this is a great series. Do NOT start with this book, though! You will be very confused as to who certain characters are. Start with Book 1 (Fairest of All), and work your way through. Things will make much more sense.

I was really excited to read this installment (thank you NetGalley for the ARC) and I loved this take on on Cinderella’s story. It’s unlike any of the previous Cinderella re-tellings that I’ve read.

My only complaint with this book is it felt like everything was rushed. There were some parts where I would have liked a little more information. We’re given just the barest picture of a moment in time before we’re rushed onto the next. Lady Tremaine and her daughters move in with Cinderella and her father, there’s a few months of tension, then BOOM…5 years go by.

The end of the book is wrapped up in just a handful of pages and a swirl of fairy magic. While it was a satisfactory ending, I wouldn’t call it a good one. Lady Tremaine is such a sad character. She was the victim of terrible abuse and became a villain pretty much against her will. All she wanted was to go back home to England (after being lured to the Many Kingdoms under false pretenses), and none of the witches or fairy’s would grant her that? Yeah, I found her ultimate fate to be terribly unjust and wrong.

That being said though, I still love this series, and eagerly await whenever comes next. If you’re a Disney fan (and definitely if you’re a Villain fan), then check this serious out.

I am a sucker for a good villain origin story. Bonus points if it somehow explains how this character isn’t actually as villainous as we thought and is in fact someone worthy of our empathy. Because evil for evil’s sake isn’t always as fun as people think it is, especially when that character is the focus of the story.

This is why I was so excited to dive into Cold Hearted. The character of Cinderella’s Stepmother is one we’ve seen time and time again, portrayed with various shades of understanding at least, if not empathy. We may not agree with the choices she makes, or the way she treats our heroine, but in reading between the lines, we can somewhat see her point of view.

Disney’s 1950 animated film Cinderella doesn’t extend this kind of empathy towards Lady Tremaine, but then to be fair that wasn’t the expectation of the time period, and that also wasn’t the focus of the film. But that’s fine! That’s what books like Cold Hearted are for.

Or so I thought, anyway. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Cold Hearted is the eighth installment in Serena Valentino’s Villains series. The overall premise of the series is to retell Disney animated films from the point of view of the antagonist, with additional context to explain why they are the way they are. The one exception to this is The Beast Within which covers things from both Gaston’s POV and the Beast’s. Coincidentally, this is the only other book in the series that I’ve read.

Though not presented really as a sequential series in the traditional sense, each book builds on the last, with the connecting framework of fairies and witches that influence the goings-on in the Many Kingdoms - the fairytale realm where the stories are set. It is with this framework that the story of Lady Tremaine is bookended. Cinderella’s Godmother has received a letter from her charge, who is now the Queen of her kingdom, begging for her Fairy Godmother to intervene and help her stepsisters, as she herself cannot do it.

Why can’t she do it, you ask? Because of an enchantment placed by the Fairy Godmother preventing them from seeing each other of course. If that sounds messed up, then prepare for things to just get worse and worse. Though the Fairy Godmother is initially reluctant, other fairies intervene, imploring her to read the recorded history of Lady Tremaine, in the hopes that it will sway her to help.

Lady Tremaine’s story, it turns out, begins exactly as one might expect. I suspect it pulls a little from the 2015 adaptation of the story as well. Her first husband was a man she loved very much, who she lost to illness before his time, leaving her a widow with two daughters. Six years after his death, at a house party thrown by one of her friends, she makes the acquaintance of Sir Edward, a man from the Many Kingdoms who has a young daughter of his own.

An all-around practical woman, Lady Tremaine is surprised by how quickly she finds herself falling in love with this man, and within two days accepts his proposal to marry him and relocate from London to the Many Kingdoms. He begs her to move there as quickly as possible, which she does, still excited to begin her new life. However, upon arrival, she finds that things are not at all what she expected.

Sir Edward is still very much obsessed with his late wife, and Lady Tremaine slowly realizes that he married her only so she could be a servant in the home and a nanny to his daughter without actually requiring a paycheck, all while he uses the money she brought into the marriage as a means to pay off his debts. He is a cruel, even abusive man and keeps the entire household under his sway.

Meanwhile, Lady Tremaine tries various ways to signal to her friends in London that she needs help, and to find her way out of the kingdom. But due to the machinations of the aforementioned fairies and witches, her pleas for help go completely unanswered. Left without a recourse in the world, even after Sir Edward’s death, she slowly but surely becomes the cold and cruel woman we came to know in the animated film.

Here’s where I think this book falls short in a truly heartbreaking fashion. Much is made of the Book of Fairytales, where every story is written out and predestined. Lady Tremaine is told that because of this book, when she comes to the Many Kingdoms and becomes Cinderella’s Stepmother, she will inevitably become an Evil one, because that is the role Stepmothers fill in fairy tales.

Though she does everything she can to avoid that fate, it is through the meddling of the witches and fairies that she is forced into it anyway. Following the marriage of her stepdaughter, she becomes deranged, and even abusive, towards her own daughters, who are even more frightened and lost in this strange land they’ve found themselves trapped in. The Fairy Godmother does eventually intervene on their behalf, to rescue them from their mother. But it is her subsequent treatment of Lady Tremaine that I found most disturbing. She does something to Lady Tremaine that she claims is what the lady would have wanted all along. It’s supposed to be triumphant, or at least satisfying. It is neither.

Yes, the woman’s behaviour was abhorrent, I’m not going to try and claim otherwise. However, the book spends a lot of time showing how all of this is predetermined, and showing how the main character was not only abused for years, but then trapped within an abusive situation by those meant to help her. So for the whole thing to end on such a callous note that missed the point of the entire story being told - at least in my eyes - left a bad taste in my mouth.

I don’t even like Lady Tremaine that much. But Lady Tremaine deserved better.

Cold Hearted is out June 29, 2021

Thank you to NetGalley and Disney Publishing for an advance copy of this book for review purposes

This was one of the best books in this series. Lady Tremaine is one of my favorite Disney villains and reading the artful backstory Serena Valentino created was both heart-wrenching and gripping.

This book follows the story of the Disney version of Cinderella. I say that to clarify since the Grimms' version is indeed, a lot grimmer... It gives us the backstory of Lady Tremaine and her daughters and how she becomes the stepmother to Cinderella. While the audience knows she married a widower looking for a mother for his daughter, this story is much more sinister than that and gives clout to the adage, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. I don't want to give a lot of the plot away since it was so delicious to discover reading the book.

I have only read a couple of the other books by Serena Valentino in this series but I have been impressed with her capability of creating relatable characters who are cast as villains throughout the Disney cannon. They are easy and enjoyable reads that any Disney fan should have in their library.

I got this as an ARC from Netgalley but I loved it so much I will purchase a copy when it is released so I can read it over and over. More please!

I love these books and getting to read the back story of the villains and this book was just as great! You'll want to pick this one up and read about the classic evil stepmother.

Cold Hearted
by Serena Valentino
Pub Date: 29 Jun 2021
#NetGalley

*Thank you to Netgalley and Disney Publising Worldwide for a copy in exchange for an honest review*

Cold Hearted follows Lady Tremaine, mother of Drizella and Anastasia, stepmother to Cinderella. We follow Lady Tremaine as she turns into the evil stepmother we know from the movies.

This book is marketed as book 8 in the Villains series, and it REALLY is the 8th book. If you think you can only read this book of the series, you are sorely mistaken. I love how characters from the other books show up in this one. For example, we see The Odd Sisters (like usual, lets be real here), Circe, Nanny, and there are mentions of The Beast and Belle, Maleficent, Ursula, and more. I highly suggest reading all of the past 7 books in this series so you understand the world (The Many Kingdoms), and all of the characters.

With this retelling in particular, I love how we see Lady Tremaine turn into the cruel stepmother we know her by. We get a backstory and see that she was nice and caring before she met Cinderella. It stayed close to the original tale from Disney, but Valentino adds her own style to it.

If you are looking for a (possibly) completed series of Disney Villain retellings, I highly suggest reading all of these books in order! I will put the reading order down below for it to be easier.

1) Fairest of All
2) The Beast Within
3) Poor Unfortunate Soul
4) Mistress of All Evil
5) Mother Knows Best (my personal favourite)
6) The Odd Sisters
7) Evil Thing
8) Cold Hearted