Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

SO GOOD! Give me the old-timey feels of this type of novel and make it queer? YES PLEASE! I will love books like these until my dying day!

What a cool premise! Great for Shakespeare fans. Fast-paced story with a good variety of characters that kept me engaged the whole time.

This was such a wonderful historical romance, with tons of Shakespearean nods, great character development, and depth of worldbuilding.

I loved this book! I devoured it in only a few sittings and wish there was more to read. The story line was paced very well and the characters were easy to love!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This book started out slow but picked up speed as it progressed. I like that Shakespeare is in this and it’s set in Victoria London.

I love queer historical fiction because these are the stories that are forgotten or ignored. It is also a reminder that queer people were always here and your ignorance won’t make them any less relevant. The novel talks about the hard reality of not just being queer but also the consequences of questioning the British monarchy. The story is full of political intrigues. Will has led a hard life and has strong opinions about his ruler but will do whatever he has to survive, even if it means protecting the Queen he couldn’t care less about.
James was the complete opposite of Will and their bickering was so much fun. Will couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life and James was the epitome of calmness and patience. Their love story is one to remember for a long time. They are willing to fight for their love, especially James who never gives up even when Will tries pushing him away.
The side characters Maggi and Catherine were amazing and I would have loved to see them more, and the occasional appearance of Shakespeare was so much fun.

What a book!

Here's the deal - Will, an excellent (though usually broke) London player and James, an aristocrat, become embroiled in court intrigue and their total hate, not at all like for each other!!

This book has everything - real history, a pirate queen, Marlowe and Shakespeare, mystery, and OF COURSE kissing. It also has a surprisingly high body count. I GASPED multiple times, especially between pages oh 3-400.

Will and James are great characters, of course, but the secondary characters also shone (especially my sweet baby Inigo). Erin Cotter also has a gift for setting - you could really feel and smell her version of Elizabethan England.

I'd recommend this to almost anyone who likes historicals or just GOOD BOOKS!

(Full disclosure, Erin is my real-life bud, but I would have loved the book regardless!)
(Also, thanks to NetGalley for the eARC, but I did end up reading the final copy!)

Technically, this is fantasy adjacent, but how could this list not include a queer murder mystery set in Elizabethan London? Will Hughes is an out-of-work actor struggling to return to the poor family who sold him off as an indentured servant. He escaped that fate, changed his name, and befriended Christopher Marlowe, a mentor whom he idolizes. Except that when Will really needs help, Marlowe isn’t there for him, betraying Will so spectacularly that the teen questions everything he thought he knew about his friend. When Marlowe is murdered, and Will accidentally foils a plot against the queen’s life, Queen Elizabeth appoints Will to replace his mentor as her spymaster—which was Marlowe’s secret identity all along. With Marlowe’s assassin still out there, Will has to turn to the annoyingly handsome Lord James Bloomsbury to help him catch the villain, and save both the queen’s life and their own.

Cotter gives readers the poor underside of a London where theaters are closed due to a resurgence of the plague, where a City Guard can just beat witnesses and leave them in the gutter, and where privacy and security are both luxuries. But it’s also a place of dreams, especially in the theater, and Cotter does a fantastic job juxtaposing those feelings, especially when centered in Will’s narration. Marlowe is fantastically sketchy when readers meet him, even through Will’s rosy glasses, which gives the mystery exactly the setup it needs for readers to feel just as invested as Will. Pair this one with the Shakespeare-focused fantasy That Self-Same Metal by Brittany N. Williams, or enjoy it on its own for an Elizabethan spy adventure.

Hooooo boy. Where to start.

First, I want to say some nice things about this book, because oh my GOODNESS did it have potential!! It has SO much potential!!! And I'm so upset that the author was failed in the way they were, because this book could have genuinely been good.

This book had amazing bones, and even if I didn't love how those bones were fleshed out, the bones were amazing. If it hadn't had good bones, I would have dnf-ed, but despite all my frustrations, I still very very much wanted to know what happened!! I cared about how the book would play out, and that is no small achievement.

However.

I firmly, firmly feel that this author was failed by their publisher. Across the publishing industry -- including at Simon & Schuster -- corners are being cut, & books are not actually being given the edits they deserve. I have a funny feeling that's what happened here.

This book reads like it needed two more edits -- one rough & hard edit to resolve soooo many big issues (from weird language, to rough-at-times & repetitive plot events, to things that made absolutely no sense), and then another to smooth out the revision. I feel like I read a rough draft, which is infuriating when I should have been reading an almost-finished book.

I also did not like the main character -- I thought he was incredibly stupid & honestly wasn't sure how he was still alive in such a cut-throat world. But I really liked the Bloomsbury children, and I liked what could have been if there had been a better edit.

All that being said. I don't know if I'd recommend this book. BUT I absolutely intend to read more from this author in the future, because I think they have the capacity to do really fun things if their publisher actually holds up their end of the bargain.

The cover alone is enough to pull you straight to this book. Shakespeare vibes but LGBTQ+? Sign me up!

I found the characters of this one to be really entertaining. The banter between them, the friendships and just how different each one was outside of the two main characters really kept this story interesting. I liked the overall plot and for a standalone I think it did really well mapping everything out to bring us to a complete feeling ending without too much feeling rushed.

Overall this was a really fantastic idea executed in to a strong book I think a lot of people will enjoy!

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this novel. 4/5 stars (post publishing review).

Look, I'm a sucker for Shakespearean England Historical Fiction and the enemies to reluctant lovers and like...Shakespeare inspired things. THEN you throw in Marlow and spying and Queen Elizabeth I and it's just like PLEASE GIVE ME.

Anyways, I really enjoyed this. Elias/Will and James had such great banter. The mystery itself unfolded in a way that I didn't see coming and the true murderer had me going OMG. There are so many hidden plots in here, and the ending also made me sad...but then happy.

There's also a lot of historical elements that go into this. Also, the Shakespeare play references through just casual literal things the characters say? AMAZING.

Set in Shakespeare's time, Will Hughes is an actor who has just lost his job and turns to his friend Kit Marlowe for help. Kit has always acted a bit suspicious but he also knows Will's biggest secret, that he's the son of traitors to the crown. When Kit's spying past catches up to him and he's murdered, Will teams up with Lord James Bloomsbury, whose family is also currently disgraced from the crown, in order to find out what's happening and clear his name. Inadvertently, this leads Will to uncover a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth and he ends up tasked with hunting the assassin and saving the Queen's life. However, more factions are involved than Will realized, leading to a web of lies and misdirection that he will ultimately have to find his way out of. Overall, a fast paced mystery set in Elizabethan England with an underlying focus on social class differences and the developing romance between Will and James.

4.5 Stars

BY ANY OTHER NAME is a theatrical queer mystery-adventure set in Elizabethan London. Our main character goes by the false name of “Will Hughes,” desperate to bury the fact that his family are traitors to the crown. When his mentor, the infamous Christopher Marlowe, is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Will learns that Marlowe was actually a spy for the queen, and tasked with rooting out an elusive order of assassins.

Will reluctantly picks up the threads left behind by Marlowe, and finds himself as the next spymaster to the queen—even though he feels no loyalty to her imperial regime. To make things worse, he’s forced to partner up with the young Lord James Bloomsbury, who’s entitlement and haughtiness are rivaled only by his handsomeness…

This book is as far away from “all vibes, no plot” as one can possibly get. It’s *all* plot and *all* vibes all the time. Vigorously plotted and fast-paced, the story is punctuated by shocking twists and (literal) dramatic pay-off that left me reeling until the very last page.

Imagine if Cat Sebastian wrote for a YA audience. That’s exactly what this story feels like. It’s exploring the social divide between classes; it endorses eating the rich; and the intricate interplay of humor, tender romance, and twisty political intrigue is utterly captivating.

I also really appreciate how the story grapples with the concept of trust and the kind of vulnerability that’s required to trust someone else—or even yourself. Trust is kind of a catch-22; it can’t truly be earned unless it’s also given. It’s fascinating to see how what the characters choose to offer and what they choose to withhold affects the course of the story.

This was such a thrilling read! It had me in an absolute chokehold from start to finish. If you want an action-packed, mysterious, high-stakes, shape-shifting puzzle box of a story, then you *need* to read this!

This was such a fun and immersive story. I think if we are thinking about ways to keep Shakespeare and Marlow relevant, this is exactly how you do it. While the world building felt immersive, I would have liked to see some more character development. At times the plot felt a bit spotty, but that didn’t take away from the fun I had when reading this.

I think everyone is allowed one harmless conspiracy theory to obsess over. Mine is, and has been for decades, that only-technically-a-conspiracy-theory that playwright Christopher Marlowe, cut down in his prime, was actually a spy for Queen Elizabeth I. Apparently I'm not the only person still enamored of this idea—this is the backdrop for the high-stakes, high-drama By Any Other Name. While technically also a YA romance, the growing relationship between James Bloomsbury and Will Hughes quickly becomes a facet of the intrigue.

16-year-old Will Hughes (not his real name) is a young actor who specialized in playing women's roles onstage. That's "specialized," past tense, because puberty is catching up to him. That's bad news for him, as landing a man's role is much more difficult, and he's attempting to lie low and earn enough money to get back to his family. Fortunately, he's friends with Christopher Marlowe... though things go south quickly when he discovers his mentor murdered in the street.

The discoveries he makes lead him to accidentally save the life of Liz I herself—not someone he's overly enamored of, for reasons that become clear in the book. But his actions earn him a new position: spymaster to the Queen, alongside Lord James Bloomsbury. James is charming, handsome, and basically everything Will both desires and despises.

The bulk of the book is Elizabethan intrigue mixed with furtive romance. As Will and James grow closer, under the shadow of multiple arranged marriages, Marlowe's murder still looms large. Someone is trying to kill the queen. And while Will would happily see her killed, the combination of carrot and stick both promises a safe life for his family and threatens potential doom should he step out of line. But the deeper the two dig into the conspiracy at the heart of the Queen's progress and victory parties, the closer to home the danger appears to be.

By Any Other Name stood out to me immediately for its gentle-handed use of Shakespearean English in the first-person prose: enough that nothing seemed anachronistic, not so much that you need footnotes to process it. Each "act" of the book is fronted by a poem by a different notable figure of the time, showcasing the poetic talents of people beyond Shakespeare. (And yes, the Bard is a presence in the book, but not a hero-worshiped one... very much the opposite, in fact.)

From a purely historical standpoint, there are some decidedly modern moments—the merit of which depends on the reader's point of view. The take on same-sex relations leans a bit more into modernity than actual history. That said, this is written for a modern readership, with character that modern readers are meant to relate to. It's probably not the time to split hairs over what triggered the wrath of a Tudor monarch (partly because the answer is "lots of things"). There are people far more qualified to discuss this topic than I am, and I believe that this book could potentially be an excellent excuse to seek those people out and read their own research and reflections on Elizabethan society.

Overall, By Any Other Name mostly balances its historical setting with its modern lens, and the few times it doesn't are outweighed by the many times it does. The intrigue is intriguing (with proper stakes and a proper twist in the tale), the romance is just slow-burn enough to be enthralling without becoming strained, and the references are accessible without demanding a scholar-level knowledge of Elizabethan arts and culture. And, like the best plays of its period, it's never truly over when you think it is. There's always one more snag to handle, one more loose end to tie up, one more conspiracy to unravel.

An actor out of a job and in need of money finds himself reluctantly working for a disgraced English lord to sole the murder of Christopher Marlowe in this Shakespearean-era mystery with a dash of romance! It is London, 1593 and Will Hughes is a sixteen-year old actor who is out of a job but he's got a secret, offstage he is the son of traitors and if anyone finds out he is dead. Will needs money, and he needs it bad. His mentor is the famous playwright Christopher Marlowe, who is murdered in front of him and Will needs to find out what happened to him. But to do that he has to team up with an English Lord that he doesn't like. Will discovers that Marlowe was a spy for the Queen and assassins were after him, but now Will has to find a way to catch a dangerous assassin as well as deal with the complicated feelings he's begun to have for a certain English lord. This book was not it at all, it started off kind of interesting but lost me about the 30% mark. The characters were bland and the overall mystery just wasn't as interesting as I had hoped. I found myself getting annoyed by Will and honestly, i just did not care at all what happened. i forced myself to make it to the end of the book but it felt like a drag to keep going on and on. The premise was interesting but the overall story itself was lackluster and unfortunately confusing and bland. I love mysteries and I love a Shakespearean inspired story, and this one has a queer romance?? Sounds exactly like something I would love, but it just missed the mark completely. While this wasn't for me if you like historical inspired queer mystery romance that are young adult, give this a go, maybe you'll have a better time with it than I did.

*Thanks Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This was a fun romp through 16th-century England! I was looking for something purely enjoyable after some heavier reads, and this mostly did the job. Cotter did a good job of making me invested in the two main characters and their relationship. I have to say though, there were a few things I really didn't like-- it's going to be hard to explain without spoilers but I'll do my best. Essentially something bad happens, and the reader is expected to empathize with the character that did this bad thing later in the book. Now, I'm someone who loves morally gray characters and redemption arcs, etc., but not in this particular case. I would still say I enjoyed it overall, it just isn't at the top of any of my lists. The writing was well-done though and, if you're intrigued, give it a read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.

I can’t give this five stars because I didn’t love it and I definitely wouldn’t read it again, but it absolutely deserves four for how very much I didn’t love it. It takes skill to pull such a visceral response of dislike from me and at the same time endear the characters to me so strongly.



The thing I like least about this book, and the thing that makes me admire the skill of the author the most, is the rawness of life in this medieval world. These characters live in filth. They are accustomed to it. Humanity here, from the aristocrats to the peasants, is only a step away from animals. Life is unpredictable, brutal, full of disease and filth and crassness and betrayal. And no one bats an eye.

It reminds me of Catherine Called Birdy (a book I still vividly remember viscerally hating when I had to read it for school all those years ago) in the way it portrays a world of casual brutality and scrabbling in the mud for a life. Honestly it’s probably at least in part a bit of germaphobia that makes me hate this world so.

Will and his friends go through so much over the course of the novel, and there are so many plot twists, that I was constantly surprised by events and by their tenacity and determination to survive. I never saw a single thing coming in the course of the assassination and murder investigation. I could see, after each piece had fallen into place, exactly how it fit, but not how it got there.



The characters and events were melodramatic and sometimes strained credulity, but it all fits with the underlying theme of plays and players. Shakespeare and Marlowe are even characters. Will begins as an actor playing girls on stage in Marlowe's plays, and he keeps all of those actor characteristics to his personality throughout the story.

Will is likable no matter his selfishness and many faults, and i found myself continually rooting for him and his star-crossed love. And I came away loathing the nobility, especially Elizabeth. Her court was rotten and she was the worst of them all.



The way the story played out was very satisfying and wrenched a lot of feelings from me. Not least of which was the conviction that I absolutely positively never want to visit this world.

Seriously though, James' sister Catherine deserved so much better. Her part of the story is the one thing that really disappointed me.

*Thanks to NetGalley, Colored Pages Blog Tours, and Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers for providing an early copy for review.

This is my first time i read a queer book based in the Shakespearean London and it was a total treat for me. I had a great time reading this one as it has mystery, thriller and romance too.

The author has penned down an amazing plotline with a wonderful set of characters. The characters were so good , they kept me hooked till the very end. Each has been given sufficient scope to contribute to the plot. I had a great time reading this one.