Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler

From our Top Reviewer, Sophie

Lady MacBethad presents a compelling and original backstory for Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth as the reader sees her childhood and gradual descent into villainy through her own eyes. The book engrossed me in the trials of life for a woman of druid descent in a time when Christianity was coming into power, while the man who deposed her grandfather sits on the throne of a kingdom that should be hers. Her search for a home and her desperation to keep her position and fulfil her family’s wishes are powerful motivations, and although considered out of context, many of her actions are inexcusable. Shuler shows us another side of Lady Macbeth in the character of Gruoch, a person who commits her crimes to survive. Gruoch experiences an odyssey to rival Odyseus’s, in which she suffers grief, pregnancy and near-rape as she changes from the innocent girl of the first chapters to the ruthless killer we see at the end, all while retaining the sympathy of an enraptured reader. This book creates a new version of Lady Macbeth, yet keeps close links with the play and carries implications that put the events of Macbeth in new and exciting light – as a big fan of the Bard, I think he himself would have loved it, as did I.