Honestly a huge letdown for me.

After enjoying A Study in Drowning, I was impressed with Reid's ability to build a haunted, menacing atmosphere, as well as creating a world wholecloth that nonetheless felt real and familiar. This left me excited for her feminist take on Lady Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's most iconic and interesting villainesses, from my favorite of the Bard's tragedies.

Ava Reid's Lady Macbeth bears almost no relation to the play, aside from being (ostensibly) set in Scotland, a trio of witches, and a few of the characters sharing names. Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth is a driving force of the play; it is she who convinces Macbeth to forsake his oath of loyalty to King Duncan and commit the regicide that places him on the throne--and is herself later overcome by guilt for her culpability in the act. She is cunning, ambitious, driven, and conflicted.

Reid's Lady Macbeth shares almost no qualities in common with Shakespeare's. She is timid, fearful, and constantly at the mercy of the brutish men who surround her (contrast against the play, wherein Macbeth and Lady M have what is arguably one of the most equal marriages in Shakespeare's canon). Ava Reid reducing this iconic and complicated character to a helpless child bride with no agency of her own is not the feminist take Reid seems to think it is; it is a disservice to both the character and the reader who wastes their time on this atmospheric but ultimately hollow story, one that does not deserve the title it steals from the original character.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

3.5/5 stars

This was dark, sexy, and so atmospheric - excellent for spooky/fall season and wonderful for any Shakespeare lovers.

That said, I was hooked for most of the story....but I felt more and more disappointed toward the end. I felt like there was a lot of great build up and I was super interested in how she was going to get out of it and what would happen....and it felt very anti-climatic the last 10% or so.

I love Ava Reid's writing - it's beautiful and luscious and sucks you in, almost in an obsessive way. But I can't say this one felt as fulfilling as I had hoped with all the build up and it felt flat as a result. I felt like we could have added maybe 50 pages and the pacing and climax would have benefited.

But overall, I did really enjoy it and I think folks will love this as a quick, easy, spooky read!

As much as I enjoy Ava Reid's writing, this book was not for me. It has been quite some time since I have read Macbeth by Shakespeare but the fact that these characters were based on those from the original story, I had a difficult time enjoying it. Although during the time period, young brides were normal, I thought having the main character be 17 was not right. I also did not like the fact that she slept with her husband and then went to sleep with another man less than 24 hours later (who is a dragon by the way). The only reason I rated this 3 Stars is because I enjoy her writing style as she is great at writing Gothic novels.

This one wasn't for me. I found what was an intriguing character in the original Shakespear to be boring in this book. I know others are loving it, but even after buying the audiobook to give it another try, I just didn't connect with the characters or story.

This book has fantastic atmosphere and worldbuilding, but I found the characters hard to root for. That being said, I would recommend this as an entertaining option for the gloomy, dark fall season.

Lady McBeth is a gothic reimagining based on the Shakespeare play. A story told by the leading villianess herself. Not everything is as it seems.

First we are introduced to Roscille. Multilingual, great memory, and clever.
She was seen as a witch or as witch-cursed due to her unnatural beauty.
It's said her eyes could give her power over men.

In this quick read in the older style there are many feelings of eeriness, masterful planning attempts, twisted moments, and darkness. It's dramatic. Tragic.

I love all of the supernatural elements included within the tale. It truly takes a dark turn that will have you fascinated.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC, The topic definitely was appealing but it really came down to the writing style and just not engaging me enough to keep me going.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read an advanced copy. It did take me a while to get around to reading this one but I'm glad I did. Reid's writing flows so nicely. I'm not a huge Shakespeare buff so please keep that in mind, but I love the twist to this story from Lady Macbeth's POV. After I read it I did see some negative reviews about the level of xenophobia and there could be a point to that. Reid changed Lady Macbeth to a French teen who doesn't have anything nice to say about the Scottish. During the reading I felt more that this Lady Macbeth was actually just very young and sheltered and finding out what the larger world is really like compared to her naive musings. Discovering the Scottish aren't "just brutes" and that being a woman, no matter your station, is in many ways a great burden. But upon reflecting on the 1 star reviews I read, I do think the same message could have been accomplished without the xenophobia element so I reduced by a star.

I really enjoyed this story, although I expected Lady Macbeth to have a little more power than she actually did. I felt that at times, her entire world was still defined by the men in her life, when I thought this reimagining would give her more agency. That being said it was an enjoyable read!

Just not for me! There were things I did enjoy about it, mainly the writing style. I will definitely be checking out some of this author’s other works based on that alone. The way she writes makes me feel so immersed in the… I don’t want to say “vibes”, but that’s what fits. I could really put myself in Roscille’s place. Something was missing for me though, I just wasn’t that emotionally invested in the characters.

I applaud Ava Reid for thinking out of the box, a retelling of a classic must be incredibly tricky.

I honestly never thought I’d love a straightforward Shakespeare retelling, but when I saw Ava Reed releasing one I was thrilled. A feminist retelling with the language of the time, along with her lyrical style - not losing the love of the story, but understanding it & loving it more.

This book shows that people are only the monsters you’ve made them to (either in their actions or just in your head).

No one is doing gothic, atmospheric fantasy like Ava Reid. Yet again, they've knocked it out of the park.

I'll prime this by saying that I was a bit wary going into this book, despite Ava Reid being one of my favorite authors, because I don't know nearly anything about Macbeth. Never read it. Watched one of the movies once. In fact, I had meant to re-watch the movie before reading this book and I knew I wanted to watch 'the kenneth branagh one' and it took me more than a week to realize I was thinking of Hamlet, not Macbeth. All of which is to say that if you're looking for a review to tell you how this holds up alongside the source material, I can't help you; but, if you're curious to know if you can read Lady Macbeth without knowing the source material, that I can maybe help with.

I won't tease it, the answer is yes. I have a layman's vague memory of Macbeth and nothing more, but it didn't negatively impact my experience at all. While I can reasonably assume that there are certainly references and homages to the source material that would deepen my understanding of this text, I never felt that while I was reading Lady Macbeth. This book stands on its merits as a strong narrative in its own right.

Ava Reid is back at it again with lush, gothic prose and you'll find a lot of what Reid has shown to be her signature themes in this story: a girl trying to survive in a world determined to stamp her out, the ways in which women are villified for the desires of men, a truly flawed main character, the hope and light that love can bring and the strength in continuing to seek it in a bleak world, among others.

Lady Macbeth grabbed me from the very beginning and didn't let go. I spent an entire Saturday doing nothing but reading this book cover to cover. I never should have doubted for a moment that Reid would keep me glued to my seat for every page.

Ugh I was so excited for this book. This was one of my most anticipated reads! The writing turned out to be super dry and I really didn’t find this to be a feminist retelling of Macbeth at all.

It was a pretty quick read, but satisfying and engaging retelling of the story of Macbeth told through the eyes of Lady Macbeth. I am a huge Shakespeare fan and especially of Macbeth. I am always amazed when someone is able to tell a story I know backwards and forward in new and interesting way. Dragons in Macbeth? I'm in.

I'm a big fan of retellings, though some are certainly better than others. Fortunately, this falls into the former category. It's clever and well written and though I knew how the story would end, it kept me turning the pages. Recommended!

I love Ava Reid's writting and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to have read this book! I never really read Macbeth when I was younger but It was so easy to connect with this story and the characters.

This was creepy with an excellently drawn atmosphere. I felt the claustrophobia of "Lady Macbeth's" position. I do agree with other reviewers who said they would've like to see her be less in the thrall of a random man and show more agency, but I also wonder how that would be possible given the time period and marriage.

The narrator was phenomenal; great accents and cadence.

Thank you NetGalley and LibroFM. I will purchase a copy for my library and share with my month Bestsellers group.

This entire story is just wrong. Lady Macbeth, in this instance, is not a strong woman urging her husband to grab more power. She wasn't even middle-aged or experienced. Instead, she's a young virgin terrified of pretty much everything, including her own shadow. She is weak and not nearly as intelligent as she thinks she is. Supposedly, this is a feminist version of Shakespeare's character, but I think there was nothing wrong with the original character. She's one of the strongest, most independent female characters in his canon, and Ms. Reid turns the character on its head to make her weaker and less feminist. Plus, there is this weird hatred for all things Scottish threaded throughout the story that makes you wonder what happened to Ms. Reid to deserve the hate. It's been such a long time since I was this disappointed in a book.

I love a Shakespeare retelling, and there's just *something* about Ava's writing that hits. every. mark!

As always, I look forward to a new Ava Reid book. She has solidified herself as a “must-read” author for me over the last few years. Her books are sometimes a tough read, subject-matter-wise, but her writing is so compelling that I always end up compulsively reading her books late into the night, regardless of my current state of horror. This new book offers up a new take on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” but told from the perspective of his conniving, powerful wife. This Lady Macbeth is a young woman forced into marriage by her manipulative father. Therefore, much of the book is focused on the power discrepancies between women and men, fathers and daughters, and wives and husbands. The latter, of course, deals heavily with sexual violence within marriages, and readers should be aware going in that this theme is heavily and directly explored. It is disturbing, as the story doesn’t shy away from the realities of Lady Macbeth’s situation. I felt that it took over the story entirely and was too much.
This Lady Macbeth is a much younger woman and one of the primary arcs of the story is her slow (very slow} growth towards embracing her own power and throwing off the shackles placed upon her. This is very different from the original character who, throughout much of the play, seems to be the real power and mind behind Macbeth himself. Ava Reid tries to portray this, but in my opinion, fails. There is a great deal of cowering by Lady Macbeth and she is portrayed outwardly as weak. There is also the addition of the fantasy elements, her abilities, witches, a secondary love interest that is definitely not part of the original play.
This story is dark and grim. The emotions that it gave me were despair, depression, and dread. Like Lady Macbeth, we are drawn into a near-constant state of tension and fear. It’s incredibly effective, and if it weren’t for the strength of Reid’s writing, could easily exhaust the reader.
I think this was a unique retelling of “Macbeth,” re-focusing the story on the women that surrounded him and the limitations placed on them by the fact of their sex. Readers who have enjoyed Reid’s work in the past will likely enjoy this one, but for me a disappointment.