diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index fcba796..bfd7652 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -43,3 +43,10 @@
 2.3.5
 ===
 - Add request timeout argument
+
+2.3.6
+===
+- Fix Python 3 bytes/str incompatibility: use response.text instead of response.content so simplejson (required dependency) receives a str
+- Fix receive_verify_post to use the dict returned by get_body() directly instead of calling json.loads on it again
+- Fix get_signature_string returning bytes instead of str; encoding moved to get_signature_hash where hashlib requires it
+- Sync version string across __init__.py, sailthru_http.py User-Agent, and setup.py
diff --git a/sailthru/__init__.py b/sailthru/__init__.py
index 0ba3866..cf30b8a 100644
--- a/sailthru/__init__.py
+++ b/sailthru/__init__.py
@@ -6,4 +6,4 @@
 __doc__ = 'Python binding for Sailthru API based on Requests'
 __copyright__ = 'Copyright 2012-2015, Sailthru Inc.'
 __license__ = 'MIT'
-__version__ = '2.3.1'
+__version__ = '2.3.6'
diff --git a/sailthru/sailthru_client.py b/sailthru/sailthru_client.py
index 3180b36..32cc016 100644
--- a/sailthru/sailthru_client.py
+++ b/sailthru/sailthru_client.py
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ def get_signature_string(params, secret):
     """
     str_list = [str(item) for item in extract_params(params)]
     str_list.sort()
-    return (secret + ''.join(str_list)).encode('utf-8')
+    return secret + ''.join(str_list)
 
 def get_signature_hash(params, secret):
     """
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ def get_signature_hash(params, secret):
     @param params: dictionary values to generate signature hash
     @param sercret: secret string
     """
-    return hashlib.md5(get_signature_string(params, secret)).hexdigest()
+    return hashlib.md5(get_signature_string(params, secret).encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()
 
 
 class SailthruClient(object):
@@ -589,14 +589,10 @@ def receive_verify_post(self, post_params):
 
         send_response = self.get_send(post_params['send_id'])
 
-        try:
-            send_body = send_response.get_body()
-            send_json = json.loads(send_body)
-            if 'email' not in send_body:
-                return False
-            if send_json['email'] != post_params['email']:
-                return False
-        except ValueError:
+        send_json = send_response.get_body()
+        if not isinstance(send_json, dict):
+            return False
+        if send_json.get('email') != post_params['email']:
             return False
 
         return True
diff --git a/sailthru/sailthru_http.py b/sailthru/sailthru_http.py
index 76e5a2d..15504cc 100644
--- a/sailthru/sailthru_http.py
+++ b/sailthru/sailthru_http.py
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ def sailthru_http_request(url, data, method, file_data=None, headers=None, reque
     data = flatten_nested_hash(data)
     method = method.upper()
     params, data = (None, data) if method == 'POST' else (data, None)
-    sailthru_headers = {'User-Agent': 'Sailthru API Python Client %s; Python Version: %s' % ('2.3.5', platform.python_version())}
+    sailthru_headers = {'User-Agent': 'Sailthru API Python Client %s; Python Version: %s' % ('2.3.6', platform.python_version())}
     if headers and isinstance(headers, dict):
         for key, value in sailthru_headers.items():
             headers[key] = value
diff --git a/sailthru/sailthru_response.py b/sailthru/sailthru_response.py
index c838bb8..16813d7 100644
--- a/sailthru/sailthru_response.py
+++ b/sailthru/sailthru_response.py
@@ -11,8 +11,8 @@ def __init__(self, response):
         self.json_error = None
 
         try:
-            self.json = json.loads(response.content)
-        except ValueError as e:
+            self.json = json.loads(response.text)
+        except (ValueError, TypeError) as e:
             self.json = None
             self.json_error = str(e)
 
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 04b0fc9..ebdff8e 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 
 setup(name='sailthru-client', 
-    version='2.3.5',
+    version='2.3.6',
     packages=find_packages(),
     description='Python client for Sailthru API',
     long_description=open('README.md').read(),
diff --git a/test/test_sailthru_client.py b/test/test_sailthru_client.py
index b6275dd..164ed88 100644
--- a/test/test_sailthru_client.py
+++ b/test/test_sailthru_client.py
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ def test_check_for_valid_actions(self):
 
     def test_receive_verify_post(self):
         mock_http_request = MagicMock()
-        mock_http_request.return_value.get_body.return_value = '{"email":"menglander@sailthru.com"}'
+        mock_http_request.return_value.get_body.return_value = {"email": "menglander@sailthru.com"}
 
         self.client._http_request = mock_http_request
 
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ def test_hardbounce_blast_invalid_json(self):
 
     def test_hardbounce_valid_json(self):
         mock_http_request = MagicMock()
-        mock_http_request.return_value.get_body.return_value = '{"email": "menglander@sailthru.com"}'
+        mock_http_request.return_value.get_body.return_value = {"email": "menglander@sailthru.com"}
 
         self.client._http_request = mock_http_request