Well Met by Jen Deluca

Pages: 319

Publisher: Berkeley

Publication Date: September 3, 2019

Genre: Contemporary, Romance

Rating: 4.5/5

Emily moved to the small town of Willow Creek, CA for the summer to help out her sister after she was left with a broken leg from a car accident. Part of helping out entails taking her niece to the renaissance faire sign ups and also ends up enrolling herself to help out as well. She ends up signing up to be a tavern wench and immediately gets off on the wrong foot with Simon, who runs the faire.  Once they start working the faire Emily sees a new side to Simon when he is acting as a pirate at the faire and the sparks start flying between them. But are these feelings coming out because they are real or because they are acting out characters in the faire?

I really enjoyed the character of Emily and I loved seeing her character really come into her own and find a place for herself in the world. She really opens herself up and starts making friends and I really enjoyed this aspect of the story as well. I love books set in small towns so this was of course right up my alley. I love the side cast of characters there are in small town books and this one was no exception.

Of course Emily and Simon had such a sweet romance and it was fun seeing them come together. Some of the conflict between them I thought was a little annoying but the way things ended up between them was beyond cute. One of my bookish pet peeves is miscommunication/ a character not speaking up for themselves. There is some of the that in this book which brought down my rating but that is obviously a personal preference type of thing.

The renaissance faire setting for this story was so fun and it made me really want to go to a faire. I actually looked it up online to see if there was one near me and I was so bummed when I saw that one had been in a nearby town a few days before! I can’t believe I just missed it but I told my husband we are for sure going next year. Also, for all my Gilmore Girl lovers out there this book totally reminded me of when Luke helps his sister out for the summer while she travels around with a renaissance faire selling her jewelry. That is one of my favorite seasons of the show because that is the one were Luke and Lorelai finally get together!

~Cassie