4.5 It has been a long time since I read a book that made me feel so constantly emotional :( Every carefully worded phrase and immaculate blend of meanings had me so immersed I was often in pain for Roscille and the rest of the women in the story. This was such a lovely retelling, as it kept the constant, never ending power play, not shying away from the horror of it all, while also creating some new elements to enhance Lady Macbeth’s journey. At its core, it is truly a story of women finding some power amidst the world’s cruelty, and the struggles in doing so. Lovely, painful, empowering.

“A small blade cuts the water and ripples outward like an echo. And then the world beneath shows itself, first as green shoots in the dirt. And then comes a woman, a witch, tearing her way through the green with her teeth.” Sobbing.

Thank you to NetGalley for this arc!

I love Ava Reid’s writing so I was super excited for this and it totally delivered! Her prose is just so vivid and captivating it draws you in and paints such a picture. Lady Macbeth is for sure not the version you are use to so keep that in mind when reading I would say and go in with an open mind. It’s really its own thing but the Lady Macbeth vibe is captured. I loved the romance and the dynamic there as well. Will be purchasing this when it comes out for our library as well as myself!

I loved this book so much! I was hooked from the first page and couldn't put it down I love this author so much this book was everything I was hoping for and then some

It's a great piece of writing portraying history, giving a new voice to Lady Macbeth and showing how brilliant she can be. It's a story of survival with amazing atmosphere. Ava Reid's very good at portraying characters feelings and making you feel for them.

Ava Reid has blown me away again with her writing!
From the first act I was enthralled with the character of Lady Macbeth & her fit for survival. The world building was so vivid in this book that it felt as if I was experiencing it all for myself.
Lady Macbeth is definitely a must read if you are into dark retellings featuring witches, monsters & overcoming the fate that others have set out for you.
A sincere thank you to netgalley & the publisher’s for allowing me to read the ARC for this book.

“The truth is found in whispers, in sidelong glances, in twitching jaws and clenching fists.”

Lady Macbeth was a gothic, re-telling I didn’t know I needed in my life. I requested a copy solely based on the fact that I enjoyed the original source material in high school and college, and I love to get stories from the POV of other characters, especially those who are typically deemed, villains.
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Reid knocks it out of the park with her character work. The inner monologue for Lady Macbeth or Roscille, as she is called for the majority of the story, is beautifully and poignantly written. She’s shown to be incredibly clever. She shows deep emotions throughout. Her pain is so raw and real. It makes her so wonderfully and terribly human. Which is what makes her such a compelling character.
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The bits of fantasy that are woven into this well known tale are wonderfully executed. There is just enough of the fantastical to give a sense of mystery, as well as, even more brutality.
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The story is dark. The twists are well executed. The character work and sheer humanity of Roscille is top-notch. And this story is a great window into the gender roles of men and women and how those roles have been used throughout history to oppress or dismiss. That additional complexity creates a work that I believe will endure for decades.

“And there is nothing more dangerous than a creature who pretends to be one thing and is in truth another.”

Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for providing this ARC for review.

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year because of my love for Ava Reid and Lady Macbeth, but this has been one of the most disappointing and borderline offensive books I have ever completed. I promise no one is as upset as me about this rating and review, but it feels false for me to go about this any other way. I have 52 notes on my arc copy and every single one of them is a criticism. There are few things that I hate more than “feminist” reimaginings that take away the agency and power of powerful, ambitious, cunning female villains. This is one of those books. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing her way to the top. She is one of the most iconic characters of Shakespeare because she is not defined by a man, the man is defined by her.

This book is not about this Lady Macbeth – it is a complete character assassination, making our ambitious middle-aged Scotswoman who calls the shots into a 17-year-old French girl (this may seem like a silly thing to note, but it is very important as all Scottish people are evil brutish idiot) with neither agency nor ambition. This version of Lady Macbeth is also incredibly xenophobic (like seriously, what the hell did Scottish people do to you, Ava?) and loves to continually call other women ugly. She is defined only by the men in her life. Where is the woman who told her husband he was “too full of the milk of human kindness” because he didn’t want to COMMIT MURDER? Where is my unhinged girly being torn apart by guilt? In this book, she doesn’t emasculate her husband and doesn’t even go a little bit crazy. She’s watered down and turned into nothing.

I have a lot of problems with this other than the character assassination. For one, it is insanely xenophobic. Scottish people are continually seen as stupid, violent brutes and there is no nuance to that. Even the love interest, the only man who is seen in a positive light (EVEN THOUGH HE LITERALLY TREATS HER AS A POSSESSION), isn’t fully Scottish. She did a similar thing in A Study in Drowning, but this was so so so much worse. It rubbed me the wrong way and just made me feel really bad for Scottish people? Like what did they ever do to her?? Additionally, the way that men are handled in this book is… off putting to say the least. The general vibe of this book is ‘woman good! :) man bad! :(‘, but there is literally nothing that substantiates this. We constantly hear about how much these men suck then, when Roscille actually has to interact with them, they’re fine? I was genuinely so confused the entire time. I can’t tell if it was man hating (in a not fun or justified way unfortunately) or Scottish hating or both? It feels like both, especially in regards to Macbeth. From the moment we meet him, all we hear about is how terrible and brutish he is. The problem? He actively listens to her and treats her like a person the WHOLE time. We are told he continually objectifies women and treats them like objects instead of people while at the same time we watch Roscille be continually surprised by how much he listens to his council and is pretty good to her. It was just really confusing and made the whole message feel incredibly shallow. This weird xenophobia is brought more to light when we watch her very boring insta-lovey love interest that she has literally no chemistry with (who isn’t a full Scot!) treat her like she is property. Like I get she’s choosing him because he’s hot, but he’s still really misogynistic towards her and it’s okay because he’s a feminine stick boy and not a brutish man. I get it, you like more feminine guys, that’s completely fine, but the weird hatred towards other men and double standard was very off putting. The whole thing was honestly off putting.

While I usually enjoy Ava Reid’s writing, it felt incredibly shallow here. It may be because of the passive nature of her writing, but I could not connect to anyone in any way. The story was told, but there is was no action. It’s like we, and Roscille, were being pulled along by a current. I really did not enjoy this. I wish I could justify giving this more than 1 star, but here we are. There were so many interesting ways to reimagine this story, and this was not one of them.

book out: August 06 2024
Thank you NetGalley and Del Ray for the advanced readers copy

“Madness, of all things, is the most unforgivable in a woman.”

A Study in Drowning is one of my Roman Empire books I think about daily, so I am so grateful I was approved for the ARC of Ava Reid’s 2024 book, Lady Macbeth. THANK YOU, NetGalley and Random House Publishing!!

While I’ve never read Macbeth, I watched some videos about the plot to help me differentiate what aspects of the story were canon and what Ava added for this retelling. You do not have to know the story of Macbeth to read this; I found that it stood perfectly well on its own.

Ava crafts a gothic atmosphere like no other. I like how she uses sinister imagery to formulate a setting that makes me feel uncomfortable as if I was a 17-year-old girl being forced to marry a much older stranger. From my understanding, Lady Macbeth has been villainized as a greedy mastermind in the original play. However, in this book, I found that all of her actions made sense and were simply the culmination of a scared young woman being trapped inside a man's world where women lack autonomy over their own lives. I also really enjoyed the water/sea imagery which brought me to a place of nostalgia from ASID.

If you want to read a gothic retelling full of female rage, witches, dragons, and incredibly eloquent writing, or you like the song Mad Woman by Taylor Swift, you can't go wrong with this when it comes out!

This was my first book by Ava Reid. I have had her other works on my TBR for a while, just have never gotten to them. I can say that I will now prioritize the others. I am not at all familiar with Macbeth, so I cannot say if this follows the Shakespeare play or not. I will say Lady Macbeth started a tad slow and I had to google a few of the countries in the book because they were unfamiliar to me. As an avid romance reader I am so used to the enemies to lover trope that I was sadly rooting for Macbeth for longer than I'd like to admit.
I love books that have blatant sexism and the women who outwit the men who say those things and get whats coming for them.
“Weak-minded, frail-bodied, like all members of your sex. Perhaps you have worked some common magic with the beauty of your face, but you have no other value or purpose beyond that. Step aside. I will

"Roscille will never stop marveling at the stupidness of men when the order of their world is disrupted."
I overall enjoyed Lady Macbeth. I'd give it a solid 3.75. Lady Macbeth is set to be released August 13 2024
I was given an ARC for this book and this is my honest review.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Ava has hit it out of the park with this novel. Is this my first 5-star rating of the year?! And I give so few! I know she said she was nervous about this one but AVA THIS STORY IS ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT. I'm just so happy and honored to have gotten an ARC for this novel. I wish it never ended. I've never read Macbeth so I am going off of what I've learned in Reid's Lady Macbeth. And considering I’m not the biggest Shakespeare fan, vicariously living through Lady Macbeth's eyes has made Macbeth a hundred times more interesting.

Lady Macbeth is hidden behind a veil due to her reputation of being able to bewitch men with just a glimpse into her eyes. She is what's known as a ‘hagseed’ - someone cursed by a witch. As a woman during the 11th century, life was extremely limiting and harrowing. Your only duties were to be present as a housewife and to bear children - specifically boys. But with Lady Macbeth, we learn just how much depth there is to the woman that has remained a mystery for so long. Ava gives ‘feminine rage’ a whole new meaning to Lady Macbeth.

This story has everything - magic, dragons, romance, vengeance, and justice. Ava's writing has entranced me in a way that I will continuously always want more from her. The writing is so beautifully and accurately descriptive, it makes the words come to life and I feel like I've become part of the scene. Lady Macbeth brings a whole new perspective to the story we all know so well (except for me because I haven't read Macbeth and don't know if I'll ever read the source that inspired this beautiful novel).

Like, I can't believe I'm saying this but, I think this is my favorite read of the year and we haven't even passed January yet. Ava is a wonderful writer and I sincerely hope her publisher knows that!!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for an advanced copy of Lady Macbeth.

I'll be making a scheduled Instagram post sharing my thoughts on Lady Macbeth. Link to my page will be provided.

I absolutely loved this book. This is my first book by Ava Reid but it won't be my last. I love a good feminist retelling of any story, but I really liked the way that this was presented by the author. The atmosphere was incredibly immersive and moody which added another layer to the story that I appreciated. The cover of this book is also perfect. No notes!

I’ve always loved Ava’s work even though she’s had some ups and downs. There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll focus on the pros and cons.

Pros:
1) The length of the novel matched the length of the play very well.
2) The gothic atmosphere was well-developed.
3) Her lyrical prose were beautiful and enhanced the sense of progressive turmoil that brings a gothic work its true power.
4) The moment when Roscille contemplated throwing herself into the sea was moving. It winked back at the way Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth went mad and then committed suicide. From the moment Lisander pulled her from the battlements, I knew that this represented a sea change after which the retelling would truly begin. I felt this was clever.
5) Roscille’s Lady Macbeth Syndrome paralleled perfectly with Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, nodding back to the moments in the play when Shakespeare’s Lady would look at her hands and see blood smeared upon them from all the people she willed her husband to kill.
6) The three witches were a very cool plot choices and provided an excellent twist. Only after much consideration do I believe that those characters played as big of a role as they could when accounting for all the strings that their presence tied together rather neatly.
7) Ava's use of many names for Roscille worked quite well to establish her continually vacillating identity. Each of Roscille's names collectively served as a survival mechanism; she became the version of herself that she needed to be in any moment to escape tribulation, punishment, or retribution for her actions. After a lifetime of changing identities to mask her true nature, she lost conviction in her true self. I'm not quite sure if we ever saw a moment in which she truly embraced her identity, though.
8) I was pleased that Roscille beat Macbeth with his own fatal flaw: pride. Macbeth felt that he could withstand the maddening force of her gaze simply because he was the King Hereafter, and died as a result. This was a realistic ending.

Cons (bear with me):
1) Roscille is an incredibly unlikeable character, and I don’t think there was ever a moment in which I felt won over to her cause. Roscille’s perspective yields an incredibly unfavorable view of the very few women in the story (calling all of them ugly, simple, or flawed). Roscille also felt that she was far more intelligent than any of the men in the novel, but her actions and plans never showed enough foresight to actually demonstrate much wisdom at all. Roscille’s shortsighted decision-making meant that the overall plot was very predictable, even after the plot broke away from the themes of the original play.
2) The amount of Scottish hate coming from Roscille’s dialogue/narration was very off-putting. To me it screamed xenophobia, and I couldn’t get past this. Roscille was not the only character calling the Scottish men brutes, so it felt less like Roscille’s perspective and more like it could be the way Ava might feel, which concerns me a tad.
3) Roscille also lets her preference for slightly more femme men color her entire impression of “rough” men, and this—combined with the Scottish hate—rendered the entire cast of male characters (excepting only one) very two-dimensional. Only Roscille's character jumped off the page, while all other characters seemed cast in a light far less becoming of them than necessary. The man-hate came off prejudicial and unfounded rather than motivated by character experience.
3) Between the man hate, the Scottish hate, and Roscille’s rather transparent general man-hate dialogue in the later third of the novel, her narration rang potently of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” This deeply bothered me and discredited the purpose of the novel and the entire character. Had Ava included more reliable narration from other characters or from an alternative P.O.V., perhaps these off-putting details would have purpose.
4) I don’t think the dragon ever really fit into the plot. I comprehend the purpose he served for Roscille's experience, but one tends to hope that a dragon will do more than just slither innocuously in and out of scenes when it appears in any story.
5) The biggest plot problem was that there were zero women around the castle. No women to do the darning, cooking, minor chores, raise children—none. This doesn’t seem realistic. Who else, in a novel set before the formation of England, would have done those tasks?
6) Though I loved the lyrical prose so characteristic of Ava’s writing, there were times when the language became so flowery that it obscured what was happening in the scene. This obstructed my comprehension of the plot. Often, it seemed like she tried a little too hard to imbue the story with romanticism by employing very basic and repetitive similes. As a result, her imagery became tiring halfway through the story. Her imagery was either gory or consumptive, and this didn't meet the standards of gothic imagery for me.
7) The quantity of blood in the post-consummation scene was completely unrealistic. A couple tablespoons? Sure. Enough to visibly pink the water in a lake at night? No way. Enough that she would still be bleeding hours after the fact? biologically impossible. Even if I had suspended reality to assume that she actually bled this much after sex, Roscille wouldn't be in any shape to have sex again immediately after sustaining such injuries. This rang of melodramatics that discredited Roscille’s narration not just in that scene, but in general. I tried to excuse it as an extension of Lady MacBeth Syndrome, but even this connection seemed tenuous.
8) As I mentioned previously, all of the male characters without exception are reprehensibly poorly developed. We know Macbeth is evil simply because Roscille tells us so, but until the last 50 pages of the novel, we had absolutely no proof of such. In fact, for the first 2/3rds of the book, he was yielding, forgiving, and patient but for his desire to acquire land, claim a crown, and gain battle fame (which isn’t uncharacteristic of all men during Aethelstan’s rule). That doesn’t make him evil. The only moment in which I felt he had become abusively violent popped up when he determined to kill any female child Roscille may conceive in his hunger for a male heir. He only became truly mad in the last chapter of the book, at which time his desire for power entirely clouded his judgment. As a result, he locked her away. Arguably, she earned that prison sentence through her infidelity, treason, and scheming, yet Roscille viewed his reaction as madness rather than justice (primitive justice though it may have been). Fleance and his father, the only other truly major Scottish characters, were two-dimensional: simultaneously ruthless and spineless. Had Roscille bothered to weigh their character before dubbing them witless, her narration would have been more reliable.
9) Ava did not take advantage of the beauty of the Scottish landscape. Roscille often notes that the landscape strikes her as barren and austere, which hardly describes the sprawling Scottish landscape even in the bleakest of winters. Conceptually, this may have been a character device to develop Roscille's alienation in this new land, but multiple factors oppose this plot function: 1) she sought to assume the identity of Lady Macbeth, 2) her husband worked to embed her within his culture and estate, and 3) her experience in her homeland hardly differentiated from her experience in Scotland but for a discrepancy in the number of 'rough' men. The only moment in which we see her shrug assimilation transpired rapidly when she assumed a new handmaid (who, mind you, appeared just as ugly and unremarkable as the other three non-witchy women mentioned in the novel).
10) Roscille never reclaimed her identity in any definable manner. It seemed that Ava intended Roscille's rebellion in the final chapter as a character revolution, but this ambitious moment deflated when the witches and Lisander both interceded on her moments of triumph. The three witches merged with her life force, increasing her phantasmic strength while muddling her identity with the presence of three others. Lisander also had to save her from Fleance, which implied that even with the strength of four witches running through her veins, she still could not be an effective heroine.
11) In Macbeth's final moments, we see Roscille using the power of her eyes to reduce him to nothing but bones in a skin sack: lifeless, sucked dry. This did not make sense to me. Roscille's power had always been her ability to inflict madness and overcome the will of others with her gaze. Her gaze was never lethal. Positing that the power of three more witches running through her veins would increase the potency of her abilities, the logical consequence for Macbeth would be madness to the point of brain death--not rapid aging to the point of desiccation. Thus, his moment of death didn't tie up any strings so much as it presented more questions ("why did Ava believe this was a practical choice? Did she just want his death to be dramatic?").
12) Overall, between the plot, the atmosphere, the characters, and the storyline in general, I think this novel should have been based upon Bluebeard rather than Macbeth. There were several nods to the original Macbeth play, but not enough to justify labelling it a Lady Macbeth retelling. It could have been more easily marketed as a Bluebeard retelling with inspiration from Lady Macbeth.

All in all, there were so many things that were done well, but the failures of the novel overshadowed the triumphs in some ways. I think this novel could have benefited from a developmental editor who might have pointed her towards better character development, less melodramatics, less man hate, and less xenophobia. Copy editors could have suggested improvements in her imagery. Ava has produced a couple strong novels, but every other publication seems to be a bit of a dud for me. This one definitely won’t land in my Ava Reid hall of fame, but I’ll continue to read everything this woman writes because I believe she holds a special place in the gothic romanticism genre. I hope she will continue to write, and even when her stories fail in places, they are still a beautiful reading experience. I will always support her goals as an author and remain an unwavering fan.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Ava Reid's past works showcase her poetic way with words and this upcoming release is no different. I think Reid did a great job adapting Shakespeare's work and making the conversation around gender applicable to modern times. While I enjoyed the book's premise and thought the conversation about women surviving in a man's world was profound and well executed, I had a hard time connecting with the main character. I found her to be very robotic and lacked emotion. I feel this could easily be fixed in the revision process and I'm very excited to read the final version.

Firstly thank you NetGalley for letting me read this early. I love anything Ava Ried so this was a treat. This new book is definitely a departure from her previous work but I feel this is will live up to her current streak of storytelling.

I enjoyed the inclusion of the play formatting with acts and including the dialogue structure. They were all nice touches. I do feel that this will not be for everyone as it has deep historical context for example the old English names for France, Britain, etc. So those who enjoy a quick read may be adverse to this. But those who want to put in a little work to understand Macbeth’s context in this story and the historical context of Lady Macbeth will enjoy this book.

My only gripe is that we did not get more. The ending is wrapped up nicely but I feel like it could have a bit more detail. But either way the little poem adds a nice Shakespearean touch.

stunning gothic fantasy, focusing on the Lady Macbeth. Yes, that Lady Macbeth. We know what happens to her husband, the power hungry Macbeth, but Shakespeare doesn’t tell us much about his wife. Ava Reid dives into the tale of Macbeth, and gives so much life to not only the Lady, but also the witches, and the power of their prophecies, and the fine line women have always had to walk in a world dominated by men who wish to control and use them. Highly recommend reading this when it’s released if you enjoy gothic fantasy

Devastatingly and hauntingly beautiful! A retelling of one of the great tragedies but from our Lady Macbeths POV. You could feel her pain and her love and her strength just leaping off the page. I had high expectations for this and it lived up to them all. Ava Reid has done it again!

Thank you to NetGalley & Del Rey for the arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have to confess, I went into this completely ignorant of the story of Macbeth and I am completely blown away. This is not a light story, but rather a dark gothic tale bordering on horror that completely wraps you up in the story. It was equal parts poetic and horrific as 17 year old Roscille/Rosele/Rosalie/Roscilla/Lady Macbeth delved deeper and deeper into the darkness of her power and navigated the cruel world she was born and sold into. Even the giving of her many names, which at first I thought would be confusing, only added to and enriched the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this Advanced Reader Copy.

Pros: This is marketed as a gothic retelling of Macbeth, and this is where the book was most successful. Ava's prose are breathing taking and like all her other work she has the ability to transport the reader to the world she has created. Few authors reshape the world around me so that alone earns high marks.

THE WITCHES!!!!! I loved the twist with the witches and overall was a highlight of the book.

Some nods to the original play were done well, my favorite one being the length of the book.

Cons: The book is marketed as a feminist retelling and minorly marketed as a monster romance and it really fails to do either. To start off on the simpler one there is very little monster and what we do get is NOT monster romance and it was hinted A03 vibes and instead you get the vaguest hint of monster. Now, on the issue of it being a feminist retelling we get very few women and all of the ones meet are all described as: plain, mad, simple, mannish bodies which is a bit concerning since those are the thoughts of our lead(hero??) Roscille who is the only female who gets to be called beautiful or clever. The interactions we do get with them are mainly spent talking about men and its clear they all have very limited agency if any at all. The story also would have likely ended up very similar with or without Roscille failed attempts at scheming since Macbeth was simple just ~Power hungry mad~ which leads to my issues with...

The characters/motivations. Unfortunately, by the end I never connected with any of the characters, understood their motivations, and ultimately even though we get battles/murders/etc. it almost felt like nothing substantial happened. I wonder if this is a nod to Shakespeare work since that is how his plays feel at times?? I could Lady Macbeth being more interesting on stage.

The witches :( [They are just stuck doing laundry (hide spoiler)] (less)

3.5 stars
I received this novel as an ARC in exchange for an honest review:
I haven’t read the original MacBeth since high school, and honestly don’t remember too much about the original tale, so I’m sure I missed a ton of references and callbacks, but it didn’t really matter- this novel stands alone from the original work, giving a new voice to an important character. I’ve read one of Ava Reids novels before, and I’d describe her style as “vibe heavy, plot light, a little weird”: and this fits well into that . She is really a master of curating the tone within a book- the dark and moribund air in this one comes across in every line and intentional word choice, creating a haunting atmosphere of loneliness and feminine rage.

It’s filled with gorgeous writing, but I’m learning Ava’s style just isn’t quite right for me (I always want to love it, but end up feeling like I need a little more in terms of plot) . I got kinda bored. I think if you’ve liked her other books, this one is also going to be for you.

An unforgettable novel. I will be thinking about this story for weeks to come. Words cannot describe the feelings I have for this piece.