Book Recommendation: Well Played | Jen DeLuca

Charm and wit served up in spades in the second installment of Jen DeLuca’s Renaissance Faire contemporary romance series, Well Played!

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About the Book (Goodreads)

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.

Another laugh-out-loud romantic comedy featuring kilted musicians, Renaissance Faire tavern wenches, and an unlikely love story.

My Review

If you haven’t read the first book in Jen DeLuca’s series, Well Met, you can still enjoy the sequel! I absolutely loved the first book though so I highly recommend reading both if you are interested. In fact, Well Met is probably one of my favorite contemporary romance books I’ve read.

I remember initially being unsure about the Renaissance Faire setting, but that is honestly one of the best parts of the series. The Faire is a bit campy, a lot of fun, and has that great throw back to bodice ripper romance novels while being funny and modern.

The second book follows Stacey, who is a fellow wench with Emily from the first book at the Ren Faire. Stacey is in a bit of a funk as Well Played opens. She has been stuck in Willow Creek and her enjoyment mainly comes from flirting each summer at the Renaissance Faire. She decides that maybe one of her summer flings could be something a bit more when she gets an email during the off season from hunky Dex, a member of the Dueling Kilts.

To Stacey’s surpise, the email is quite sweet, and the two begin corresponding. It doesn’t feel like the Dex she knew, but maybe he has grown up a bit or truly fallen for her. Stacey feels lonely now that she’s seen Emily and Simon find love, so she leans into her blooming relationship with Dex. But after months of intimate correspondence, Stacey realizes that all along she wasn’t to Dex, she was writing to his cousin Daniel.

Daniel is sweet, a bit shy, and nothing like the rogueish Dex. Daniel lacks the huge ego of Dex, but he also lied to her. In real life this would have red flags written all over it, but in the context of a fiction book it doesn’t read that way at all. In fact it is clear that Daniel is the type of man Stacey needs.

I found this sweet, entertaining, and a fast read. It didn’t quite live up to the first one, but that would have been nearly impossible to do. It still had the great setting, fantastic writing, signature humor, and charm as the first book. A bingeable follow up to DeLuca’s first hit!

About Jen DeLuca

Jen DeLuca was born and raised near Richmond, Virginia, but now lives in Arizona with her husband and a houseful of rescue pets. She loves latte-flavored lattes, Hokies football, and the Oxford comma. Well Met is her first novel, inspired by her time volunteering as a pub wench with her local Renaissance Faire.