“A witch needs no invitation, only a way of slipping through the lock.”

I wish I could give this hauntingly beautiful story by Ava Reid six stars. Note: this is a re-imagining of Macbeth, not a re-telling. Come in with an open mind of where this story will take you – if you do, you will thrilled, enraptured, haunted, disturbed, and on the edge of your seat.

Reid is the most intentional author I have ever read. She writes nothing, no scene, no detail, no word, without a reason. Every single word is chosen to convey a message. Many people call her prose lush and beautiful, but I would rather call it deep, meaningful, and haunting. Lush makes it sound like purple prose, which is attempting to be poetic just for poetic sake. Reid’s work is not flowery, it is raw, gut-wrenching, and emotion-provoking. I once saw her share that she does not try to make her prose lush, she more just tries to accurately describe emotion and experience to the best of her ability, and this is shown through her writing.

This is not just a story of a woman embodying the violence of men, it is a story of a woman learning how to learn a new language of what power truly is when taken back by women. It reverses the historical story of women being burned at the stake and makes a tale of women embracing the collective power in womanhood when we stop participating in patriarchy’s evil games.

“Perhaps her greatest mistake was trying to ape the power of mortal men.”

This book is absolutely RICH with stunning and haunting (that is truly the word I would use to describe this book) motifs. Just like in her previous book, Juniper and Thorn, she uses the theme of trauma turning us into monsters who want vengeance. However, in this story, she explores how being a monster can be something beautiful, saying things such as: “a chrysalis holds the monster lovingly within it,” and “[the curse] did not change me, [it] only revealed me.”

Another theme this book explores is the becoming of animal-like creatures, saying “she must become an animal in order to survive it,” “there is nothing more dangerous than a creature who pretends to be one thing and is in truth another,” and many other comparisons to eels, dogs, wolves, bears, serpents, and more.

“All these free, wild creatures, stamped with the virtues of men.”

I have seen other reviewers say that it is not a feminist re-imagining, because of the main female character, Roscille’s, young age and the violence she endures from her husband and other men compared to the original. However, while the original Lady Macbeth does have initial strength and courageousness, she ends up going mad in the end, whereas in this one, the violence women experience from men is not only a more accurate portrayal, which makes it feminist, she finds her strength along the story. She does not go mad, but rather drives the men who have oppressed women mad. I found the divergence of the “bad bitch” strong FMC trope we have seen in fantasy recently so refreshing. I don’t want a “strong” female main character who is the best assassin or hunter in all her land despite it not quite making sense for her background. Roscille is a real woman given an unfortunate hand in her life who does her best to survive – a struggle that most women can understand, to some degree.

“What is power, Lady? It is a word that grows more distant from its meaning each time it is spoken.”

In the original Macbeth, I wouldn’t argue that Lady Macbeth is the strongest character, I would argue it was a man’s imagining of a strong woman, but in reality one who is blamed for her husband’s actions and decisions, then dies to benefit his story and growth. In this re-imagining, Lady Macbeth is truly strong, as shown through her resiliency despite what she has experienced.

This book explores questions like, what is true power, what is love, what is desire, what is the purpose of pain, who are we versus who are we perceived as, and community.

“Her life cleaved into two simple halves: the time when there is pain, and the time when there is not.”