It’s been a long time since I’ve read Macbeth, but I know this is loose interpretation by the author of Lady Macbeth’s story. I’m not mad at it. She’s a scared girl who was raised cruelty and then sold off.
I do wish that it was a constant build of her boldness and badassness. Overall a good story Is definitely recommend.

What an odd retelling. I finished this book in a single day and was extremely invested in the story. Having never read Macbeth, I felt like I wish I had while reading this retelling of it because of how the fantastical elements were involved. Was definitely an uncomfortable read due to the male heavy cast, with only three female characters (minus the witches), two of which are barely in the book. The misogyny is so apparent that I became slightly turned off towards the end of the novel. Lots of repetition, particularly about how she was born and her relationship with her father, which became annoying towards the end, but I still read this whole thing in one sitting, which I haven't done in years. Would definitely recommend for fans of retellings and of strong female characters.

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for access to this eARC in exchange for an honest review. These opinions are my own.

As many reviews have expressed already, I think your experience of this book will greatly depend on your expectations and how much you remember about the original play.

I started this book ready to love it! Unfortunately, I don’t think it was for me. Note that I went into this hoping for an immersive dark gothic fantasy & without reading the synopsis.

There were parts I enjoyed — namely descriptions like the initial imagery of the witches, the scream in the last chapter, the multiple names for characters and their titles, etc. However, even many of these lost their impact through their constant repetition. For instance, the word serpent appeared WAY too many times back to back, and every time Lisander popped up we got several sentences mentioning his green eyes. I think it’s important to trust readers to be perceptive and pay attention; repetition like this takes away some of the mystery/magic and desire to pay close attention to the language and symbolism as you read. Furthermore, I think this repetition of character descriptions and thoughts caused me to feel like nothing was really happening as the story was unfolding.

Reading the last chapter, I couldn’t help think about how much potential this story had in its plot, magic, and characters — mixing Macbeth, Bluebeard, the Scottish cliffside landscape, legends & magic, power struggles, and warrior customs.

Sadly, it felt as though the scenes and chapters meant to humanize characters, build layers/depth to the plot, establish interpersonal dynamics, and fill all other narrative crevices were left out of the story. Scenes crucial to the characters and their relationships are missing. As a result, nothing felt real or multidimensional. Characters don’t act like human people would act (especially not adult human people), and their thoughts and actions are inconsistent with what we’re told about them. I’ll admit, I struggle a lot with plot points & character thoughts that don’t make sense; I can’t usually look past them because they rly mess with my ability to buy into the story. Details redacted for now due to spoilers. Essentially, the characters felt faceless or like puppets--no agency, just following the script. Roscille was a bit more fleshed out, but her thoughts and actions often didn’t make any sense. I did enjoy the way we saw how her upbringing shaped her throughout her narration in terms of her religion and clear disdain for Scotland, its customs, and its people. :/

We are also told over and over and over again of her cleverness and skills — but we’re never really shown her identity in action. Once again, it felt like the important parts that would work to prove her qualities to us were omitted. In the case of Roscille and her cleverness specifically, this also means that when we see her struggle or make mistakes, we don’t take it in conjunction with her known skills as nuance — what we’ve been told does not hold the weight of what we’ve been shown, so I really struggled to reconcile her thoughts & actions with what we’ve been initially & continuously told about her intelligence and education.

There are a lot of general statements about men and what they do and what they think; I don’t think readers would necessarily disagree with most of Roscille’s thoughts, but the constant repetition and telling again in such a short book was frustrating. There were constant mentions of this and yet somehow not really a thorough exploration. The same applies for the themes of womanhood, madness, vengeance, and fear imo. There could have been so much there, but because the characters didn’t feel solid, their motives and actions and themes of the story didn’t either.

Finally, I’m not convinced this should be categorized as a fantasy or a romance. There aren’t enough moments to convince us [redacted bc spoilers] is a real person, much less to establish him as a believable love interest. The instalove is JARRING, and it’s not really backed up by much afterwards. The fantasy of this world is largely unestablished — even Roscille seems kind of unbothered about discovering anything about her powers or the magic of the world around her, which didn’t make much sense given her position and how terrified and clever she kept telling us she was.

Essentially — I can see so much potential in this story, and I had such a desire to love it; it just didn’t feel like it was fully written to be what it could have been or what it seemed to want to be. If this book had been longer, the characters and setting/world-building a bit more fleshed out, and the plot a bit more layered and meticulously planned, I think this could have been a really solid read for me. Even if this Lady Macbeth wasn’t the interpretation I had been expecting/hoping for, there are so many great ideas, themes, and characters in here — I think I would have been won over pretty quickly.

4 stars

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of this title!

This book is a very entertaining one. It is a story of powerful women, the men who fear or use them, and the lengths they will go to break free of their chains. That being said, it is very loosely based on the original text, so those looking for a faithful adaptation should look elsewhere.

In this version, Roscille (Lady Macbeth) is a 17 year old foreign bride promised to the Thane of Glammis. Her stare induces madness in men so she must always wear a veil to hide her eyes. Terrified of going to the marriage bed with this stranger, she asks for a wedding gift before they lie together. The web of deceit and intrigue spawned by this event goes on to roughly recreate the events of the play, though with several key differences.

When I started reading this book, I thought it was going to adhere more closely to the original text. Within about 50 pages however, I realized this is only a retelling in the loosest sense. Roscille is far from the Lady Macbeth of the play, mostly using her deception in self-defense rather than in pursuit of power. Macbeth is a very brutish man from the start, and while we do see his descent into madness he is a pretty one-dimensional character. Other characters such as Fleance and Lisander play a much larger role in the book than they do in the play. If you're hoping for this to be a character study of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, you will be disappointed.

That being said, I still enjoyed the book. It's clear Reid has done their research and weaves the language, folklore, and politics of the time together artfully. The glossary at the front with all the character and place names was a nice touch. While not the Lady Macbeth of the original, Roscille was a compelling protagonist. Anyone who has been the victim of circumstances beyond their control, particularly in regards to their sex, will likely empathize with her situation.
The plot combines intrigue, fantasy, and even a little romance in a way that kept me interested.

If youre looking for a faithful retelling of Macbeth, keep searching. But if you're looking for a historical fantasy with a focus on a female protagonist, this is the book for you.

3 stars

More than for most books, readers' incoming expectations and knowledge base will dramatically impact how they feel about this novel. For me, unfortunately, both led to a variety of disappointments.

Whether folks consider themselves novices, casual readers, or literary critics, they've likely had access to Shakespeare, and that may even be through more modern references than the source material itself. The average person may not know the nuances of _Macbeth_, but many are likely to know about Lady Macbeth's iconic villainy. And if those folks were expecting this version of Lady Macbeth to assume her rightful villainous role like Law Roach on _Legendary_, well, they simply will not be saying, "You did what needed to be done."

Roscille is young, completely defined by men, and hateful without the fun of well-planned recourse. An originally layered and complex character becomes, even with more information, somewhat dull. This version does not live up to her point of origin.

The characterization should be the most important part of this novel, as the title and incoming expectations suggest, and while that falls flat, the plotting is only just okay. This is an interesting enough read, but it's not impactful in this anticipated way either.

While I obviously wanted something a bit different here, I still enjoyed another view of this character, and those who come to the novel for that purpose will have a guaranteed win.

The Shadowhunter Chronicles meets Chinese diaspora folklore in Darker by Four, the first in an epic contemporary fantasy duology from Jade Fire Gold author June Tan.

I love Ava Reid, but this isn’t my favorite of hers. There was a lot of creative liberty that went into this reimagining of Lady Macbeth, but I’m not sure they were necessarily for the best. Overall the story was well written and well paced, I’m just not sure I liked where Ava ran with it,

For Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind nearly all of her husband’s ambition. For Reid, she remains the impetus for all the action to come, but rather than longing to be “unsexed,” she schemes to protect herself from the cruelty of the men around her. From the moment she asks her husband for a necklace and he launches his attack on Cawdor, all of their fates are sealed. This version of Lady Macbeth is not innocent, her hands are not clean, and she still has visions of blood dripping from her fingers.

The majority of the main story beats remain intact, however the journey to get there is often quite different. The story will be a surprise, even for those who are intimately familiar with the source material.

Overall, an adaptation that honors the original, while still managing to be distinct.

Ava Reid never disappoints! From the very first page, Reid's poetic writing style made this one of my favorite reads of the year. I liked how Reid explored a background for Lady Macbeth and humanized her. I'm vaguely familiar with Shakespeare's play, enough that I knew how the story was going to go, but Reid added so much detail and worldbuilding that this felt like an original novel. I don't think that knowledge of the play is necessarily needed to read this book.

Ok so I've decided that your enjoyment of this book is going to hinge entirely on how much you remember of Macbeth (if you have read it). I read it in high school, and maybe a second time in college and have semi-recently read a graphic adaptation from the perspective of the witches. And so, I don't like, remember it super well, but I remember it well enough to remember Lady Macbeth being highly entertaining evil badass who talked Macbeth into most of his worst deeds (she's basically like, "you can't be a king without a few murders, shrug" iirc). And that is not what is happening in this book at all. Reading the book's description, I was kind of thinking we'd get like, Lady Macbeth: Homelander Edition where she went around just wholesale murdering folks with laser eyes or something, but I got a simpering 17-year-old instead who spends a lot of the book (justifiably) cowering in fear. And I might have liked it more if I weren't expecting...well, Lady Macbeth. So, I think folks who are unfamiliar with the character might like it, but it wasn't for me. I saw another reviewer mention that it might have been better if it were framed as a Bluebeard re-telling, and that's a great take.

My other issue seems to be a draw for other reviewers, and that's the writing style. It's again a matter of preference, but it somehow read as paradoxically too spare and too wordy. I don't know! It's hard to articulate, but it wasn't doing it for me. My thoughts may have also been colored by my aforementioned disappointment in the character.

It was ok - like I can understand why people would like it, because it wasn't bad, it just was so wildly different from what I was expecting. So, 2 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and Del Rey for the eARC which I received in exchange for an unbaised review. Lady Macbeth is out in August!

Ava Reid’s writing gets better and better with each book they publish. Macbeth has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and her take on play feels fresh while staying true to the key elements of the original

I’m going to need 3-5 business days to recover because WOW. I was chilled to the bone the entire time I was reading, which is exactly what a horror novel should do. Reid cultivates such an excellent sense of dread with their authorial voice. The word choice and atmosphere are immaculate, and now I desperately want to visit Inverness.

Note - this retelling is very different from the original Macbeth in characterization and tone. Just be aware.

Thank you Del Rey and NetGalley for the digital ARC. I will be preordering immediately.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I have always loved Macbeth, so seeing that this would be a retelling from Lady Macbeth's POV was a slam dunk for me. The choice to make her a 17 year old girl instead of an older adult woman threw me, but it really worked. The plot does differ significantly from that of the play (there's a dragon and Macbeth dies differently). I think the characters we dynamic and the dark and moody atmosphere was great. Pacing is fairly slow, but I still managed to finish it in a few days. The witches in this were so good!

Just a heads up for folks: there was a pretty rough torture scene and one scene of marital rape (not graphic).

As much as I absolutely loved Junior & Thorn, this is the second novel by Ava Reid that I wasn’t a fan of. A Study In Drowning was easily set to be my new favorite book of 2023 — a gothic dark academia story focusing on mythology, misogyny and the way women are treated in exclusive academic spaces. Yet, I didn’t love it. With Lady Macbeth, I feel the same way. A feminist, moody retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it had all the ingredients to make for a compelling read, but the outcome was quite dull. Reid’s prose, as usual, is exceptional, but I wasn’t keen on the characterization or her interpretation of Macbeth itself. I’m still looking forward to whatever Reid puts out next, but I’m hoping it’s more in the style of Juniper & Thorn.

Ava Reid can do no wrong. This book is all of the things you could want in a Shakespeare retelling. It’s gritty and gothic and unapologetically filled with female rage. The perspective of lady Macbeth is not a perspective I knew I wanted until I had it. Lady Macbeth was reflective, poetic, and brilliant. I highlighted so many of Reid’s beautiful quotes because her prose was blowing my mind.

Our main character, Roscille, was brave and fascinating, flawed and dark. The way that she used her cleverness as a weapon and outsmarted the people around her had me hooting and hollering. The subtle love story was just enough to make me swoon, but wasn’t a main part of the story at all. Still, it was incredibly sweet and spicy in a book full of caution and violence. I cannot wait for this book to be out in the world in August!!

LADY MACBETH was one of my most anticipated reads this year and has turned into one of my most conflicting reads ever. I have a special attachment to the Lady since I was her in a play once, and Macbeth is tied for Twelfth Night as my favorite Shakespeare play, so I have to admit I got up and screamed when I saw Ava Reid was writing a Lady Macbeth reimagining and then did it again when I was accepted for the ARC.

I'll start with the good things first, because to be clear, I do not regret reading this book. The writing style was beyond gorgeous and I was spellbound by the craft put in at the sentence level. Every time I had to put the book down, it only took a line for me to be back into the bleak, gothic setting, and I know I will be returning to study this style. I also loved the linguistic care paid attention to the shifting names and rejection of allowing one language to dominate the landscape. It was naturally done and I was never confused by it, so it remained one of my favorite things about the book once I'd finished.

Character wise, I enjoyed Roscille and Lisander the most as characters who are regularly divorced from humanity, a theme that has always been important to me; I think the characterization was strong and Macbeth loomed larger than life in a way I liked reading about. But I think I enjoyed Roscille more as her own character. Comparing her to the Lady Macbeth many know and love is where my disappointment begins to creep in.

As I've mentioned, Lady Macbeth is an important character to me, but I also love ruthless, cunning, conniving women. When I heard reimagining, I was excited to see what had been crafted of her personality and backstory. For such an iconic character, there is little established about her; there was an endless possibility of directions to choose, and while I liked what was offered, I liked less that it was what was offered for her specifically.

If you're attached to the bloodthirsty middle-aged woman who shamed her husband for weakness, you will not find her here, and I'm not sure you will even find the start of her here. In her place, we are offered Roscille, a 17-year-old French bride sold off to the hulking, violent Macbeth. Her witch-touched nature had created a reputation of inducing madness, and so she arrives veiled and adrift with a plan to keep herself from the marriage bed as long as she is able. She has been trained to be clever and at first succeeds at her ploys easily, but has to work harder to arrange the pieces as she wishes as Macbeth's madness grows and she meets unexpected roadblocks.

I want to stress that I love Roscille as Roscille. But offered as a spin on Lady Macbeth, she and her worldview fall flat. I found myself craving nuance or at least a small challenge to Roscille's intense xenophobia and prejudice against Scottish men (I would absolutely not recommend this one to Scottish readers), but as it was, the gender politics felt flatly crafted and gave an unfortunate one-dimensional view of most of the male characters surrounding Roscille. I think this also lended to the disappointing declawing of one of my favorite ambitious female characters; Roscille is passively reacting to a world that was historically sexist, but even in sexist societies women have their own power and value to wield.

In the end, I think I just don't agree with what seems to be the foundation for this reimagining, which is that women being portrayed as villainous is a fault of men around her finding her mad and uncontrollable. This feels less of a roadmap for a young Lady Macbeth sharpening her teeth and more like a defensive defanging, which I don't think was fully sold to me. If this had been an original story with the names changed, I probably would have been in love with it. But as it stands, I adore evil, ruthless female characters, and though I can admit most of my disappointment is probably self-inflicted for entering this book with too many expectations, this did not end up being the Lady Macbeth I've adored for much of my life but instead a sweeping, enchantingly painted portrait with a disappointing subject.

If you are a fan of beautiful prose and aren't quite as attached to Lady Macbeth as me, I would still recommend this book, even just to hear what you think about it.

I absolutely love Ava Reid’s prose and will read anything she writes. Lady Macbeth fell a little short on the momentum for me, but picked up on the latter half and I breezed through it. I would have loved more depth on certain plot-lines and characters, but nonetheless this was still a great read. For anyone who loves a good, classic, retelling, this is a perfect pick. I look forward to the official release and will be buying a copy.

3.5/5 STARS: Another solid work from Ava Ried. Will post a full review on Instagram post release day! @haileysgoodbooks

I really, really wanted to love this one, but for me it was just an okay book.

I thought the actual writing was beautiful, but I did not connect with how this retelling was done.

I think some other people might enjoy it tho based off other reviews!

Thank you NetGalley and DelRay for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a big Shakespeare fan, so I felt pretty confident I would love this book from the get-go. I did not, however, know the writing would be utterly luscious. I floated through this book as though caught in the haze behind Roscille's veil. I don't mean the story didn't feel grounded; it did. I mean the whole book read like a sharp-toothed dream. By showing this story from Roscille's point of view, Ava Reid makes this age-old classic brand new. It is dark and harsh and cold as Glammis castle's stone, but it has a secret soft underbelly for those who follow it to its end...just as Glammis castle has secrets for those bold enough to search for them.