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Summary
Summary
A battle is looming over Scotland, but fourteenyear-old Lady Mary is safe in Inverness Castle, awaiting her marriage to a young squire. Asthe ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, Mary has nothing to fear--until her father betrays the king and is hanged as a traitor. In an instant, both her father and her future are lost to her forever. Condemned to spend her days as a scullery maid, Mary becomes a firsthand witness to Lord and Lady Macbeth's relentless pursuit of power. As the events of Shakespeare's tragedy unfold around her, she discovers that destiny is hers to change--and that the power to save the Scottish throne from tyrants lies in her hands.
Author Notes
Caroline Cooney was born in 1947 in Geneva, New York. She studied music, art, and English at various colleges, but never graduated. She began writing while in college. Her young adult books include The Face on the Milk Carton, Whatever Happened to Janie?, The Voice on the Radio, What Janie Found, No Such Person, and the Cheerleaders Series. She received an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults for Driver's Ed and an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers for Twenty Pageants Later. Two of her titles, The Rear View Mirror and The Face on the Milk Cartoon, were made into television movies.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up--The intrigue of Shakespeare's Macbeth is brought to life in this bewitching tale as seen through the eyes of 14-year-old Lady Mary, Lord and Lady Macbeth's court ward. Mary has a favored position with Macbeth until her father becomes a traitor to King Duncan and is hanged. As Macbeth ascends to the throne, the court descends to violence and murder. Mary, once betrothed to a young man she loves, learns that he has been killed and must face life at court without support from anyone. While alone on the ghostly moors, she overhears a prophecy from the "weird ones" to Macbeth setting the events in motion. As Mary watches the madness of Lord and Lady Macbeth unfold, she must demonstrate courage to prevent destruction by her power-hungry guardians. Action and drama abound in Caroline Cooney's novel (Scholastic, 2007). Each chapter is preceded with lines from the Bard's play and cleverly foreshadows the coming events; some of the play's actual text is used in the book's dialogue. Charlotte Parry's voice resonates to bring authentic accents to the reading. Young adults who enjoy historical fiction or mystery will find this audiobook gripping and may even be enticed to read Macbeth.--Jeana Actkinson, Bridgeport High School, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Cooney (The Face on the Milk Carton; Code Orange) fashions a compulsively readable, behind-the-scenes peek into the rise and fall of Lord and Lady Macbeth, told from the points of view of several of the play's minor characters plus a handful of invented ones. As the central tale proceeds inexorably from triumph to betrayal to tragedy, several subplots unfold. Sweet-natured Lady Mary (daughter of the Thane of Cawdor) was sent to learn the domestic arts from elegant but icy Lady Macbeth. Her circumstances take a turn for the worse when her father is declared a traitor to the king, her fiance dies in battle, and she is offered in marriage to Seyton, Macbeth's henchman, a ruthless man who will do whatever it takes to acquire a fortune. Banquo's son fights in his first battle and then must determine where his loyalties lie when Macbeth's thugs kill his father. Sturdy, independent-minded Swin runs the kitchen with an iron fist but dispenses unexpected kindness on the sly. Meanwhile, embittered Ildred comes to terms with a terrible betrayal and eventually rediscovers a rewarding way to live. These briskly narrated plot lines and more unfold in bite-size scenes, each prefaced by a related quote from the Bard's play. Thus, each of Shakespeare's lines gets enough space so that it can be savored by readers who might otherwise be intimidated by the dense, unfamiliar language. This more human-scale vision offers an easy way in for readers new to the play, and will also reward those familiar with the grand tragedy. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School, High School) Macbeth receives another look, this time from the distaff side. Three female characters are introduced into the familiar story, their perspectives alternating to tell the bloody tale: Swin, the cook at Inverness Castle, who has a secret; Ildred, once a member of the petty nobility, now an embittered servant to Lady Macbeth; and Lady Mary, daughter of the Thane of Cawdor, who is the ward of the Macbeths and whose father is hanged for treachery after the battle that kick-starts the action. Some other minor male characters share the stage, most notably Banquo's son Fleance, Duncan's son Malcolm, and Macbeth's thuggish page, who becomes his stooge in evildoing. Viewing this story about power and its misapplication through the lenses of the relatively powerless gives readers a fresh look at Shakespeare's deconstruction of the dark side of ambition. This is the thrust of Cooney's exploration, rather than literary elegance: when scenes from the play appear in the novel, the Elizabethan language is rendered, fluidly, into standard English prose. The choice keeps the focus on the characters, each of whom, by the end, has discovered new heights -- or depths -- of ruthlessness and grasp in a satisfying re-exploration of ""the Scottish play."" Copryight 2007 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Cooney tackles a heady project and pulls it off in this retelling of Macbeth from a 14-year-old girl's point of view. Young Mary lives as the ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, whom she idolizes. When her father is executed as a traitor, Mary's future looks grim. Meanwhile, visiting King Duncan is mysteriously murdered. Banquo's inept son Fleance takes a shine to Mary as both become insiders to Shakespeare's unfolding tragedy. At last, Mary finds herself trapped in the final siege against King Macbeth. Always building her trademark thrilling suspense, Cooney not only has written a romance quandary, she's contrasted the lives of rich and poor while tempting her fans to read one of Shakespeare's most accessible plays. Teachers should pounce on this for its easy introduction to Shakespeare and its depiction of history. Young readers simply will enjoy the suspense. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth, this novel follows the events of the play through the eyes of Lady Mary, the 14-year-old ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth. Quiet Mary is in a position to engage with various characters--from the kitchen staff to the witches to the Scottish royalty--and observe what goes on around her. After her father is killed as a traitor, Mary becomes vulnerable to the maelstrom of ambition and violence that sweeps through the Scottish court. Cooney writes an involving story that is laced with quotes from the play, but she isn't slavishly bound to the drama. Readers who know Macbeth will find this a fascinating, humanizing sidelight on the characters, while those new to the story will find Lady Mary's adventures reason enough to enjoy this unusual historical novel. In the appended author's note, Cooney comments on both the historical Macbeth and Shakespeare's play and instructs her audience Now read Shakespeare's Macbeth. Given this reader-friendly introduction to the story, they might actually do so. --Carolyn Phelan Copyright 2007 Booklist