A Midsummer Night's Dream but make it queer and set in modern times full of mess reality TV dating shows and AA meetings? Yes please!

Puck is a really well written story about romance and friendship that takes parts of the famous Shakespeare story while creating a tale all its own.

I loved the exploration of gender both in Puck themselves and in how they perceived other characters (Robyn) based on how those characters presented themselves.

I enjoyed the exploration of friendship and what it can look like to have great friends but then grow apart over the years. As someone with ADHD, I could really relate to that aspect of the story because I adore my friends but really struggle to maintain contact in a way that most people expect.

I also really appreciated the way they explored Zander's sobriety and how that impacted their life and the lives of people around them.

I picked up the book because the premise seemed fun but it's really a very insightful story as well.

The only thing keeping the book from a 5 star for me is my personal feelings towards some of the spicy scenes. I love two consenting adults who want to bang, but I found some of the power dynamics to not be quite my cup of tea. Definitely could be someone's yum though! 100% acknowledge this is a me thing.

I would, without a doubt, read more books by Samantha Allen and look forward to adding more offerings to my TBR.

Thank you to NetGalley and Zando Projects for a chance to read this book early in exchange for an honest review. As always, all opinions are 100% my own!

As an American, maybe I just missed the memo on the British spies for Stalin, but this was new information for me and I LOVE learning new things.

I found Stalin's Apostles to be well researched and an engaging read. While I sometimes had a little trouble keeping the different spies straight, that wasn't due to an error by the author but rather my own tracking as their stories wove together. These men led very interesting lives and there was just a lot of good information about their time corresponding with the Soviets.

The only thing I could have wished for was a little more information about their childhoods. I'd be interested to see how that time shaped their subsequent choices as young men and then as fully formed adults. I understand that information can be harder to come by though as you tend to know less people in childhood, your memory can be more spotty during those years, and the men had been selective (and with with varying degrees of truth) in what they reported about their own lives.

Overall, I found it to be a well researched book on a worth while topic. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in that section of history.

Thank you to NetGalley and PublicAffairs for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.

How to Cheat Your Own Death is the third addition to the Castle Knoll mysteries by Kristin Perrin and it's the third one I've read and enjoyed.

As usual, the mystery was solid with interesting twists and turns. I liked that time was spent getting to know Annie's parents and we got a chance to learn more about Rowan's back story. Plus, the new cast of characters were interesting to explore.

I do think the book lost a little bit of its charm by being set in London this time. I think Castle Knoll and it's slow pace of life is such an idyllic setting for these stories and it helps keep the murder mysteries cozy.

That being said, whether set in London or Castle Knoll, I'd be interested in continuing the series as this book did a good job of introducing new questions we'll want answered in subsequent books.

Thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.