Well Played by Jen DeLuca Pages: 336
Published by Berkley on September 22, 2020
Series: Well Met #2
Genres: adult, contemporary, Romance, Romantic Comedy, New Adult
Source: eARC from Publisher
Another laugh-out-loud romantic comedy featuring kilted musicians, Renaissance Faire tavern wenches, and an unlikely love story.
Stacey is jolted when her friends Simon and Emily get engaged. She knew she was putting her life on hold when she stayed in Willow Creek to care for her sick mother, but it's been years now, and even though Stacey loves spending her summers pouring drinks and flirting with patrons at the local Renaissance Faire, she wants more out of life. Stacey vows to have her life figured out by the time her friends get hitched at Faire next summer. Maybe she'll even find The One.
When Stacey imagined "The One," it never occurred to her that her summertime Faire fling, Dex MacLean, might fit the bill. While Dex is easy on the eyes onstage with his band The Dueling Kilts, Stacey has never felt an emotional connection with him. So when she receives a tender email from the typically monosyllabic hunk, she's not sure what to make of it.
Faire returns to Willow Creek, and Stacey comes face-to-face with the man with whom she’s exchanged hundreds of online messages over the past nine months. To Stacey's shock, it isn't Dex—she's been falling in love with a man she barely knows.
Well Played is the second book in the romantic comedy series, called Well Met by Jen DeLuca. Though I have not read book one, Well Met yet, I didn’t have any problem following along and enjoying Well Played because each of the books in this series act as a standalone. There is some character crossover because they are set in the same town, but it wasn’t anything that threw off the story for me. Well Played takes place at a renaissance fair, which is a setting that I completely love. It really lend itself well to the fun atmosphere of the book. Overall, Well Played is a fun contemporary romance. I enjoyed this one, but it did at times feel a bit generic and it didn’t blow me away. I liked it, but I didn’t love it.
In Well Played, we meet our main character Stacey. Stacey is a long time worker at the fair, and over the summers there she had a crush and a fling with one of the dueling kilts players, Dex. Though their fling ended last summer, our story starts with Stacey facebook messaging Dex and starting up a new texting relationship after the Fair has moved on for the summer. It was super cute and flirty and fun. The story line was predictable but in a comforting, satisfying way. Stacey learns that the person she is texting is not Dex after all. (not a spoiler, this was in the summary) There did manage to be a bit of a surprise twist in the story, which was fun for me to discover because I thought I had the whole book figured out pretty early on.
Overall, I liked the characters well enough and I enjoyed the flirty banter with out couple. That was my favorite aspect of the book, but sometime was keeping me from completely falling head over heels in love. I’m not sure what it was. The writing was good, the characters were nice and the romance was fun but I still felt solidly in the good range while reading. Everything about this book felt steady and nice, but nothing was all that exciting. If you are in the mood for a cute rom com, and you love a Renaissance Fair setting, then Well Played might fit the bill for you. I enjoyed Well Played. It was a good read. Not my favorite of the year, but a good read nonetheless.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2020 New Release Challenge
- Contemporary Romance Reading Challenge 2020
sherry fundin
sounds like fun and a great time to read a book filled with laughter
sherry @ fundinmental