Pursuit of power

The gripping story of the woman who inspired one of Shakespeare's most iconic characters.

- ANNE ELSE

LADY MACBETHAD, by Isabelle Schuler (Raven Books, $36.99)

This first novel by the Swiss-HawaiianAmerican actress, writer and former Waterstones bookseller Isabelle Schuler emerged from her draft screenplay for a TV series. Her book ends before Shakespeare's Macbeth begins, with Gruoch's marriage to the man she has long desired: MacBethad. That's his correct historical name, by the way, which has been Anglicised over the years.

As she explained in a recent interview, in her version, the events leading up to that marriage "map more closely [than the play does] on to a historical account" of the turbulent 11th century in what is now Scotland. Gruoch's mother, Ailith, is a Pict descended from Druids.

Her father, Boedhe, ruler of Fife, intent on keeping the favour of Malcolm, the Christian king whose father defeated the Picts, bans the ancient "heathen" religion and exiles Gruoch's grandmother for clinging to it. She tells the young Gruoch, "You will be the greatest of us all... You will be immortalised."