Ava Reid's Lady MacBeth is one of my most anticipated reads of the year. She is a master at crafting a story full of imagery, atmosphere and thought provoking themes. It is safe to say that if you have enjoyed her previous work, you will also appreciate this book. If you find her critical representation of patriarchal violence heavy handed, then this book will also not be for you. While "A Study in Drowning" remains my favorite of her works, this reimagining of Lady MacBeth is full of metaphor and lyrical prose designed to maximize the effect of her character's plight and the cruelness of the world.

The main critique I have encountered from those who felt disappointed by this novel are that our FMC is no Shakespearean Lady MacBeth. Instead of the ambitious and manipulative lady in the play. I recently listened to Judi Dench discussing the complexity of the character. Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth controls her destiny (or at least believes she can) by controlling her husband. There is an affection for him, but also the recognition that her fortune is dependent on his own success.

Here we find a very different character. One cast asside by her father, used as a pawn for his own gain (as most medieval noble women war) to appease a potential adversary. She arrives in Scotland unprepared for life away from court and finding herself alone and vulnerable. I do understand how this representation is an obstacle for many, but I also can see why Reid chooses show a world where the Lady Macbeth we have come to know is untenable in this time and place. Instead, she must find strength and power in a very different way, by finding herself outside of the many identities the men in her life allow her to hold. The outline of the original story is there, but it's impact is quite different. Not one of tortured guilt, but of survival.

For me it was a profound and intense reading experience, and one that will keep me thinking for a while to come.

Thanks to Del Ray for access to an e ARC of this book for review purposes.

Absolutely breathtaking. I went in with zero knowledge of Macbeth. All I knew was I do not get Shakespeare no matter how it’s written. However Ava turned this story into her own in the most eloquent way. Without leaving me behind. She incorporated I think the best of Shakespeare with a modern twist without losing the identity or integrity of the plot. It was well focused, paced, and character driven. I really do wish more people would write like this because it is STUNNING!!

Real Rating: 2.5 / 5 Stars

This is the first Ava Reid novel I’ve disliked, and I’ve read her entire backlist.

Up until Lady Macbeth, Ava Reid had a flawless track record with me. There are very few fantasy authors who can match her when it comes to beautiful prose matched with fantastical worldbuilding. Her love of powerful female protagonists is always a huge bonus for me, too.

It’s not that Lady Macbeth lacks beautiful prose, because there is beautiful prose in this book. It’s not as plentiful as in Reid’s other books, but there is a sparseness to this book that I feel might be part and parcel of the overall aesthetic for the story and so it might be on purpose. The worldbuilding is fantastic, actually, but I have a feeling it probably doesn’t feel like it if you aren’t familiar with a lot of aspects of medieval Europe. Reid definitely made a choice to write this without simplifying anything for readers who might want things explained more plainly to them.

Where I came up short in this book was in the protagonist and just the book as a whole.

I understand where the author was coming from and (likely) where she was trying to get to with Lady Macbeth and this story. Most of what I came away with was about lost girlhoods, weaponizing female beauty, fetishizing certain types of women, men taking credit for a woman’s labor, men blaming women for their shortcomings, male anger and pride, man’s sense of entitlement, misogyny, how scared men are of the idea of women having the least amount of power, and how everyone has a breaking point. Even the most docile-behaving women. The issue I had is the story managed to touch lightly on all of these things but somehow also seemed to never get to the point about any of them. It skimmed lightly over all of these talking points like it was a buffet and ended up with an overloaded plate full of unresolved issues.

This is where my overall disappointment comes into play: It was just so scattershot. Have a sip of daddy issues. Take a nibble of my love for animals. I’m into being queen. I’m not into being queen. I’m cunning but I’m not. I’m not just a girl but I’m totally just a girl. Here’s some beautiful prose, but here’s a whole lot of boring.

It’s an inconsistent book with an inconsistent protagonist and an inconsistent plot. I’d like to say I don’t regret finishing it, but I do. I wish I had DNFd it. But I thought I owed Ava Reid the finish.

I was provided a copy of this title by Netgalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews three stars or under do not appear on my social media. Thank you.

File Under: Fantasy/Romantasy/Historical Fantasy/Literary Fiction/Standalone Novel

Wow. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, and this is one of them. Dark, atmospheric, and cold, we follow our protagonist as she fights not only misogyny in her time (what’s new) but also fights for her survival.

This is my favorite Ava Reid book to date. However, all her books do feel the same to me with slightly different characters/plots. And I mean SLIGHTLY. There is still the same kind of instalovey/falling in love with feminine men/villainizing arm hair/unredeeming men using women/annoying or unlikable mc to look forward to (or to not).

I understand that doesn’t seem like the best of things, but the girlies who like Ava Reid KNOW*. Sometimes you just need a grotesque pretty little gothic fantasy to ick you out and remind you life could be worse. And she knocks it out every time. Out of all of hers to date, I recommend this one the most. I do wish (like all her other works) that there was more feminine rage, and if it’s not obvious, I read this more for the fact it was by Ava Reid than my (limited) memory of Macbeth.

*know to check trigger warnings before reading any of her books

This is my second read by Ava Read and I have fallen in love with her eloquent writing. This story is one of suppression, murder and heartbreak. Lady Macbeth had a life that was never her own. She tried to make the best of her decision and have little amounts of control however at the end of the day this is a time period where women are valued for nothing except their ability to be able to pleasure a man, give them a son or be a slave to them. Every man (besides the prince lol) was an arrogant pos and I just want them all to meet a gruesome demise. I have limited knowledge of the source material of this book however this is the only recounting that I need to read. Great pacing, great characters and great discussion can be had from this book.

4.5 stars rounded up

“You are the creature I made you,”

Thank you to netgalley and Del Rey for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Lady Macbeth is a beautifully crafted tale about women and the power they hold, even when it seems as if they hold none at all- even in a world where men seem to clutch most power in their blood soaked, dirty hands.

It is a tale about transformation , womanhood and vengeance. It is about wickedness and discovering that true monsters may come in every form, especially in the form of ordinary men in their quest for power and the lust they have for violence snd bloodshed. It asks: what if the monsters who haunt your dreams are real? True violence, true horrors, the stuff of nightmares.

This story begins with a slow start, it quickly builds up from an eerie sort of quiet to a full blown, raging storm. The prose is eerie, atmospheric and the gorgeous sentences will stencil themselves into your brain never to be forgotten.

Alrhough Lady Macbeth is inspired by the play Macbeth by Shakespeare this book is an entire different entity. Shakespeare’s work acts as building blocks to the tale that is woven in this book. This is not a retelling but rather a different take on the same characters. While I read a little bit of Macbeth in high school, I ultimately never finished it but I am eager to do so after finishing this, to see how they differ and to see how it inspired Ava Reid to compose this variation.

This book holds notable mentions of witchcraft, curses, sins, magic, old folklore and tales of horror. While reading, I did a deep dive into the origination of these myths learning that the story of Macbeth also features three witches, sprouting the theory of witches and evil beings coming in threes. Shakespeare originally got this inspiration from pre-christian mythology and greek mythology. As an avid lover of all things witchy and horror it was interesting to learn that so many features of my favorite movies, books and other forms of media were inspired by this. (Ie: hocus pocus, the weird sisters from herculus, charmed, the chilling adventures of sabrina) as well as where the line “double double toil and trouble” originates. The list goes on and on as Macbeth holds an inspiration over modern media as we know it.

Lady Macbeth is our protagonist but she is neither good or evil. She is somewhere in between struggling with the consequences of her actions. She is constantly fighting for balance, and battling between her own choices and actions trying to decide which parts of herself to hide away or reveal. She must embrace all of herself or none at all. Her world is not black and white and neither is she; it is a murky, foggy gray. It is the unpredictable waves crashing against the cliffside that haunts her dreams at night: it is the blood she ultimately sheds even when she is not the one doing the actual killing. Macbeth refers to her “as the dagger in his hand” and this could not be more true as he wields her as a weapon of sorts, as she grasps for the role she beings to play in his chaos and quest for power.
She can sense her end coming or it is truly just the beginning? Of power, violence - the adjustment period between girlhood and womanhood, of powerless to powertul, the full transformstion of Roscile to Lady Macbeth; becoming who she was always meant to be.


In her journey of good and evil, she is the only one who can determine the outcome and the path she will eventually find herself on.


While it holds so many notable themes, death seems to be the most notable of all, becoming its own character; given its own lifeline and heartbeat. All of these things make this a difficult book to put down as it sucks you in. One you will be dying to consume every drop of. It is a gory, wild ride with dreamy atmospheric writing that will suck you right into this world. It is unforgettable and nightmarish in the best way.

This was my first read by Ava Reid, it definitely won’t be my last and I’m excited to pick up her other works in the future.

“Sometimes no words are as eloquent as the spilling of blood.”

Thank you to Ava Reid and Del Rey via NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wow. Wow. Wow. I am in awe of this book. I want to mention that I’ve never read the original play, so my knowledge of the story was next to nothing. I knew Lady Macbeth was conniving and a villain… and that’s basically it. This story veers drastically away from the original play (I now know the plot), so if you love Macbeth or were hoping for a novel about the villainous Lady Macbeth, then I’d look elsewhere.

I found this story captivating and the main character fascinating. The plot was heavy and veers into some pretty dark stuff. But I was so invested in Roscille (Lady Macbeth) that I ate it up in the need to find out how her story ends. If you’re looking for a book that is witchy, set in 11th century Scotland, and full of schemes, then I’d recommend you read this!

Blood-soaked female rage written in luscious and haunting prose. This is the story of a 17 year old witch-cursed girl who is determined to be something other than a man's plaything. Manipulation, revenge, and madness. I could not put it down. My only complaint is that the ending felt rushed. This is the best Shakespearean retelling I've read in a long time

This was a really compelling read.It was faced paced and it was very hard to put down.It absolutely had me hooked from the first few pages.I thought the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were fascinating and the story itself definitely deserves a sequel.If you like dark fantasy, good story telling, medieval settings and a touch of witches and dragons this one's for you.

There was a lot to love in Ava Reid's Lady Macbeth. First, Reid's prose is technically at its finest, with haunting, stark sentences that lend to the tale's gothic feel. The building of tension especially towards the end was riveting. I would have liked to see more demonstrable change in Lady Macbeth's character as it was often referenced that she was evolving, but the reader isn't really show how. The characterization of Macbeth and the other Scots also leaves something to be desired and was a bit oversimplified at the least and perhaps xenophobic and exaggerated at most (I was a bit disorientated to see all the Scots seemed to be brutes while the only "good" male character was half-English? seemed to be a strange choice). Despite this, I was still drawn completely in to Reid's world and continue to be a huge fan of her work. If this is the beginning of a new more direction in Reid's oeuvre I'm excited to see what's next.

LADY MACBETH by Ava Reid (releasing August 13) was a well-written historical fantasy I thoroughly enjoyed. The author’s prose was lush and haunting. As one might assume by the title, this is a reimagining of Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In this version she is Roscille, a 17-year-old Frenchwoman with eyes that can turn a man mad, thus she must always wear a veil. The book starts with her arranged political marriage to Lord Macbeth. She begins as a frightened young lady in a place different from that which she is used to, now married to a man she knows nothing about. However, despite her youthful innocence she is shrewd and calculating, and it’s fascinating to see Macbeth from her point of view. As she grows into herself and gains confidence in her new surroundings, she tries to outwit the men in her life who treat her as a pawn.

Thank you to NetGalley and DelRey books for an advanced copy of this book.

i adore a shakespeare retelling and macbeth is a personal favorite, so when an author i already adore says she’s doing macbeth from lady macbeth’s perspective, i’m sat. roscille’s development throughout the story is just perfect - i love that it simultaneously grants her power but also shows just how much she is confined by the men in power around her and her struggles to navigate that. the prose is lovely and so descriptive and the ending is just… incredible. a very high four and a half stars.

I did not want to put this book down at any point. The writing is beautiful but not overly flowery where it's hard to read. This author knows how to write about the struggles women face without it feeling bleak. If you support women's wrongs, you'll like this one.

Ava Reid's writing is gorgeous as always, but as a Shakespeare retelling, this book makes some very odd choices. It doesn't feel like a reimagining of Macbeth so much as an unrelentingly dark story about sexual violence, with characters who happen to share the same names.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc! Opinions are my own.

This spellbinding and harrowing feminist novel haunted me until the last page. To say I loved it is an understatement.

Roscilla made a beautiful and tragically empowering protagonist, in a world where the horrors of men affront a women’s every desire.

Newly married off to lord Macbeth, in Scotland amidst terrible political unrest, she must face the uncertainty of the new customs alone. She wears a veil, considered a “hagseed”, when she looks into the eyes of men they’re said to be bewitched.

Lord Macbeth has witches ensnared underneath his castle telling him prophesied tales of his impending kingship and emboldens him to move forward with cruel certainty. Roscilla is caught in his web, trying to survive a world pitted against her since birth, where men will use and dispose of women’s power at their whim.

I loved how this washed over me like a dark fairytale, with sweeping prose and harsh realities, I fell in love with Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and Lady Macbeth one of the most interesting women of classical theatre. In the recent wave of feminist retellings, Lady Macbeth is a great candidate for a modern author's reimagining and reexamination, so I was very excited for Ava Reid to tackle it and I so wanted to love it. Unfortunately, I'm very torn on Reid's take on the story, which is heavy on the "reimagining" of Lady Macbeth. In this version, Lady Macbeth is a 17-year-old French girl named Roscille sent to Scotland to marry Macbeth, Thane of Glammis. Instead of ambitious and cunning, Roscille is understandably scared, isolated, and grasping at ways to survive a strange, masculine world. While this is fair, it doesn't allow Roscille to really feel like Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, even as she manipulates her husband and other men into the situations that kick off the plot of the play.

I don't need a retelling to follow everything about the original, but at times it felt too far away from it. This also comes into play with the fantasy elements; while the overall atmosphere, the propecy-telling witches, and Roscille's rumored curse give the book a haunted, magical edge that really works, the book tips into true fantasy with the addition of a dragon (!) and general increase of magic after a more straightforward book.

Still, Reid's writing is lovely and atmospheric, Roscille navigating a dark, lonely place. Her focus on a woman's role - as a daughter, as a wife, in a castle, amongst other men, and more - is well done. I just wish it was better used in the context of Macbeth, which it certainly could have been without stripping the legendary character and marriage of key qualities from the play.

Thank you to @avasreid @delreybooks & @prhaudio for the #gifted #ARC & #audiobook of #LadyMacbeth

I’m a fan of #AvaReid, so this #retelling of Lady Macbeth was at the top of my #TBR.

This story follows a teenage Roscille who has been given to Lord Macbeth to marry by Roscille’s father to gain an alliance. And thus, she becomes Lady Macbeth. She is beautiful & has the capability putting men under a spell to do as she says if they look into her eyes - witchkissed. It is for this reason that she is required to always wear a veil to cover her eyes, except when her husband needs to use her as a weapon. Especially since her new home is made up of only men. There are no other women – not even servants. She quickly learns that her husband and his court are brutal & ruthless. If she is going to survive, she’ll need to strategize & outsmart all of the men who would so easily harm her if given the chance.

While staying true to the Lady Macbeth we know, Reid also gives us a different perspective of her cunning personality – a reason for why she needs to be that way. This retelling was a great example what lengths men will go to for power & how worthless women were/are considered by men & they sufferings endured. As I read this #book, my anger increased with each page. There was a lot of female rage happening both on & off the page. The one bright spot was sweet Lisander.

Fans of Ava, retellings & #Shakespeare will eat this up! It was incredibly dark, atmospheric & #gothic. I would have liked a tiny bit more at the end, but overall, this was a standout #book.

OH!! And there’s a #Dragon – nuff said!

#2024 #August #NewRelease #MustRead #Bookstagram #Read #Reading #Audio #Review #Fiction #Adult #Thriller #Mystery #Suspense #Fantasy #Historical #Romance

I've been a fan of Ava Reid since I read Juniper and Thorn, a visceral and strange fantasy like nothing I'd ever read before. I seriously saw the house from that book in my dreams, it was so vividly drawn. With Lady Macbeth, we're transported to 11th century Scotland. Roscille (or Lady Macbeth) a 17 year old French noblewoman with eyes that supposedly bewitch any who gaze upon them, is sold to Macbeth, a brutish lord who is hungry for power. I wasn't terribly familiar with Shakespeare's Macbeth before reading this retelling (I had to remind myself about the plot via the play's Wikipedia page). From what I can gather, Reid put a unique spin on the source material. Rather than a brutal and cunning villain who acts for her own self-serving causes, Reid's Lady Macbeth is a tool of her husband, a "dagger" he can use to advance himself. I understand some Macbeth fans might balk at this, but I appreciated how Lady Macbeth was humanized. I expected to read a story about a cutthroat female villain, and instead got a subtle, complicated portrait of a young girl being used by the men around her, a cog in a strongly patriarchal society.

Ava Reid is a fine writer and I will read anything by her.

I adored A Study In Drowning by Ava Reid so I had high hopes for Lady Macbeth. Unfortunately, I only found it to be okay. I felt like there were pacing issues, I was a good 30% into the book and still felt like barely anything had happened. I also felt like having Lady Macbeth be a 17 year old girl in the retelling took away a lot of the impact from Shakespeare's play, because we don't get the fearless, middle aged Lady Macbeth, but instead a young girl. As someone with Scottish heritage, there was an awful lot of xenophobia towards Scotland/Scottish people that I also did not appreciate. Sadly, I can't really recommend Lady Macbeth.

I really love Ava Reid's writing. Everything she writes is so beautiful, she's incredibly talented. That being said, I struggled a little with this book. It was of course still beautifully written, it was just a bit of a grim read and I'm not sure I really love what she did with the character of Roscille/Lady Macbeth.