Amazon Cover
The Well Met romance series is centered around a local community ren fair, and alternates concentrating on the locals and following the performers on the ren fair circuit. A delight either way, the humor, community, family, and found family makes this series shine. The over-30 crowd also get a good representation in this series. I only read books 3 & 4 of the series.
Well Met series by Jen DeLuca
- Well Met
- Well Played
- Well Matched
- Well Traveled
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for WELL MET
All’s faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author Jen DeLuca.
Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?
The faire is Simon’s family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn’t have time for Emily’s lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she’s in her revealing wench’s costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they’re portraying?
This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can’t seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for WELL PLAYED
A 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.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for WELL MATCHED
A pretend relationship gives two friends more than they bargained for in a Renaissance Faire rom com filled with flower crowns, kilts, corsets, and sword fights.
Single mother April Parker has lived in Willow Creek for twelve years with a wall around her heart. On the verge of being an empty nester, she’s decided to move on from her quaint little town, and asks her friend Mitch for his help with some home improvement projects to get her house ready to sell.
Mitch Malone is known for being the life of every party, but mostly for the attire he wears to the local Renaissance Faire—a kilt (and not much else) that shows off his muscled form to perfection. While he agrees to help April, he needs a favor too: she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend at an upcoming family dinner, so that he can avoid the lectures about settling down and having a more “serious” career than high school coach and gym teacher. April reluctantly agrees, but when dinner turns into a weekend trip, it becomes hard to tell what’s real and what’s been just for show. But when the weekend ends, so must their fake relationship.
As summer begins, Faire returns to Willow Creek, and April volunteers for the first time. When Mitch’s family shows up unexpectedly, April pretends to be Mitch’s girlfriend again…and it doesn’t feel so fake anymore. Despite their obvious connection, April insists they’ve just been putting on an act. But when there’s the chance for something real, she has to decide whether to change her plans—and open her heart—for the kilt-wearing hunk who might just be the love of her life.
MY REVIEW for WELL MATCHED
A friend recommended Ms. DeLuca’s “Well Met” series on GoodReads, thinking it was right in my sweet spot, and she was right.
Kilt wearing males; family dynamics where children (or teenagers in this case) actually are part of the equation and are their own unique people with their own goals; ren faire action; older woman having romance.
Check, check, check.
Sometimes the baggage the female main character brought with her after her abandonment leaving her a single mom was annoying, and other times it made her 10 times more real. April is not a perfect perky just out of school woman. She raised a kid on her own; lived through a horrible accident; and kept everything together for years because that is who she was. Opening her heart to getting stomped on again, not so much. But along comes a white knight, a gym teacher, a man – while April isn’t Needing a man in her life after all this time, she just may be strong enough to risk Wanting a man again.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for WELL TRAVELED
The Renaissance Faire is on the move, and Lulu and Dex are along for the ride, in the next utterly charming rom-com from Jen DeLuca.
A high-powered attorney from a success-oriented family, Louisa “Lulu” Malone lives to work, and everything seems to be going right, until the day she realizes it’s all wrong. Lulu’s cousin Mitch introduced her to the world of Renaissance Faires, and when she spies one at a time just when she needs an escape, she leaps into the welcoming environment of turkey legs, taverns, and tarot readers. The only drawback? Dex MacLean: a guitarist with a killer smile, the Casanova of the Faire… and her traveling companion for the summer.
Dex has never had to work for much in his life, and why should he? Touring with his brothers as The Dueling Kilts is going great, and he always finds a woman at every Faire. But when Lulu proves indifferent to his many plaid charms and a shake-up threatens the fate of the band, Dex must confront something he never has before: his future.
Forced to spend days and nights together on the road, Lulu’s interest in the kilted bad boy grows as he shows her a side of himself no one else has seen. The stresses of her old lifestyle fade away as she learns to trust her intuition and follow her heart instead of her head. But when her time on the road is over, will Lulu go with her gut, or are she and Dex destined for separate paths?
MY REVIEW for WELL PLAYED
Another character driven rom-com from the incomparable Ms. DeLuca, Well Traveled follows a lawyer from her melt-down to finding her way – with a side of hot lead guitar in a kilt. Only it’s so much more than that, as we revisit the world of Willow Creek and the Ren Faire circuit.
I can see some people comparing this to a Hallmark Christmas Movie – big powerful city woman discovers love in small town and gives up everything to make gluten-free pastries. But the romantic lead doesn’t give everything up. No – Louisa BURNED IT TO THE GROUND and threw the ashes into water … well her phone. Then she goes to the “small town.” And it isn’t some man in a red sweater to her matching green one. No, Dex has a kilt and she wears a (green) bodice.
Family-centered, music, romance between older (thirty-something), jobs, incomes, and the delightful disconnect from reality that ren faires provide. Well Traveled is a great read.
