Review: Well Played by Jen DeLuca

Well Played

(Well Met #2)
Jen DeLuca
Release: September 22, 2020
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ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley

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.

Review:

I've read several second-in-a-series contemp romances this year and I don't think I've liked any of them as much as the first books. This is really weird! Well Played continues the pattern though. I was completely charmed by Well Met, but this one -- not so much. Part of my issue is with the last paragraph of the blurb. I really wish I hadn't known that going in! But I understand why it's there as a low-key content warning.

Another thing that bothered me is how little page time is actually spent at the Ren Faire. The whole time Stacey is emailing and texting is in between Faires. Then when she returns to the Faire again, she's not enjoying it so it doesn't have that warm fuzzy feeling we got from being there in the first book. At the end of the book, Stacey does get back to the state where Faire is her happy place but I wasn't feeling it throughout.

Much like Emily in the first book, I found Stacey's situation incredibly relatable. She moved back to her hometown when her mother got sick and now she feels stuck. But the fact she felt like college was such a long time ago when she turned 27 in the book bothered me. Talk to me when you're 40 and still stuck there Stacey!

What I really enjoyed about Well Played were the supporting characters. In that time between Faires, Stacey is helping Simon and Emily plan their wedding so we get to see lots of them. Dex and his band The Dueling Kilts don't get a lot of page time, but I really enjoyed them. I even woke up the next morning with "What do you do with a drunken sailor" still playing in my head. There's also lots of Mitch, the kilt-wearing, sword-wielding coach who I'm pretty sure will be the hero of book three. I am so here for that!

I think readers who enjoyed Well Met will also enjoy the sequel because it's fun to be back in this world. I just don't think Well Played stands alone as well as it should.

   

3  stars

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