Aya M. Productions

Note: I received this book for free from Sullivan & Partners in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I was not paid to write this. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A Midsummer Night’s Fling by Eliza Walker is a second chance romance (or perhaps third?) that is filled with Shakespearean references. The main characters are after all part of a summer production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by one of the premier Shakespeare companies on the west coast. A part of me questioned my desire to read A Midsummer Night’s Fling because I was one of those students that couldn’t get through a Shakespeare play without also studying the Spark Notes that went along with it. I do, however, love second chance romances and enjoy going to the theater (as long as it doesn’t come with an assignment attached to it).

Nicola and Max have a past. A long and messy past. One that takes most of the book to uncover. However, Nicola is back in Los Angeles after 5 years of touring for musical productions and 5 years of never having seen Max, and the director of Max’s newest production needs a new lead. This forces Max to knock on her door, get said door slammed in his face multiple times in an effort to get Nicola to be in the play. Thus ensues the start of their rocky road towards a relationship.

Walker took readers on quite the ride in A Midsummer Night’s Fling. I’ll be honest, I was a bit lost during all of the Shakespeare references. How do people remember all of those Shakespeare plays by heart? However, overall, I really enjoyed watching Nicola and Max’s relationship develop. From the beginning of the story, they had a chemistry that was impossible to miss. I was dying to understand their past, and I was dying to see how they would overcome it all. I fell in love with their characters and couldn’t wait for their happy ending.

I also loved the direction Walker took in displaying theater life. While I have absolutely ZERO experience with it all, I had a lot of fun reading about a theater production from rehearsals to preview nights. I loved how she showed the good parts of theater and didn’t shy away from the bad parts either. She even did a gender reversal, making a male character a victim opposed to the typical female, which I thought was a fantastic choice.

I’d highly recommend A Midsummer Night’s Fling by Eliza Walker for anyone looking for a contemporary romance that has a lot of theater drama added in. If you’re not a fan of Shakespeare or unfamiliar with Shakespeare, you may get lost in some of the references, but it didn’t hinder my reading experience of it at all. So I still would recommend it. I can’t wait to see what she decides to do next if she continues with this merry cast of characters.