Oh my gosh, this was so sticking adorable! I had a lot of fun with these characters and loved their chemistry. It was my first DeLuca book, but it won't be my last.

Emily has no idea what she is going to do with her life when her sister is injured in an accident and needs Emily's help. And that is how Emily finds herself doing something she never expected, volunteering as a bar wench at a Renaissance Faire for her niece. Emily has no idea what she is getting herself into, especially dealing with a moody type A personality organizer, who just so happens to make a very dashing pirate...

I love, love, love this book! I think Well Met was one of my most anticipated releases for 2019 and now after reading it, I can say that it totally was worth my excitement. Well Met was adorable, just the way a romance read should be- full of heart, over the top cuteness, great characters and fun banter, misunderstandings, a hysterical setting, angst and drama and a tiny bit of steam.

I have no idea how this is a debut because in my opinion it was just about perfect, I would't change a single thing about the story. I think this is the perfect read for anyone looking for a cute romance, fans of Renaissance Faire experiences and anyone looking for an adorable fun story in general. The next book in the series, Well Played which Stacey's story, is now my new most anticipated read for 2020!

For more reviews visit me at https://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com/

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2020 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2020/01/2020-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

Well Met made it onto my Best Books of 2019 list.

There are days when you pick up a bright, fun romance novel and crack it carefully. I mean, who in the world knows what’s going to be inside a debut author’s mind? Well, when I read Well Met back in May it took me just a few pages to stop worrying and start winding my way through the woods of this adorable ren faire.

Super cute, sweet, and story-fied, Well Met makes most of the other contemporary romance novels of 2019 look like they tried too hard to do what debut author, Jen DeLuca, did effortlessly: make me laugh AND make me care. And make me miss high school drama clubs and hot guys in doublets.

This was really sweet! I really loved learning more about Renaissance faires while also reading such a sweet love story. I did have some problems with how insta-lovey the end of the story was (I mean they were together for maybe two weeks before they declared their love?) but overall it was really adorable.

Well Met is a fun, fresh take on contemporary romance set around a Renaissance Faire. Honestly, I fully expected over the top cheese with this one. Instead, DeLuca writes a story of family ties, self discovery and a wonderful enemies to lovers tale! With awesome banter, building tension and just enough steam, this was a great read.

This contemporary romance is exactly what you want out of a Summer read - something light and fun, with a hint of tension to take you a little deeper when you least expect it.

Confession, I forgot to read this, forgot I had even requested it. I bought it the second it came in my store and it was one of the best books I read last year. I recommend it to everyone browsing the romance section and my coworkers. I loved every second of it!

Kudos to Jen DeLuca for choosing a Renaissance Faire as the unusual setting for this adorable enemies-to-lovers rom-com! Emily moves to a small town following a bad breakup to take care of her niece Caitlin and older sister after she’s injured in a car accident. Next thing you know, she’s roped into serving as a tavern wench at the Faire since Caitlin can’t participate without a family chaperone. Unfortunately, it’s an immediate battle of wills between Emily and Faire coordinator, buttoned-up English teacher Simon the Ren Faire Killjoy. So why is it so hard to resist the sexy pirate Captain Blackthorne, Simon’s alter-ego? Is their flirtation all part of the act or the real thing? As Emily’s insecurities start to fall away, she learns the truth behind Simon’s aversion to changing anything about the Faire and his subsequent disapproval of her actions. Will that understanding be enough to carry their Faire flirtation into the real world? This is a delightful vacation read with a steamy romance and a lot of heart.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Berkley Publishing Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

It doesn't get much cuter than this: girl makes a temporary move to a small town and thanks to the magic of Ren Faire ends up falling for one of its organizers.

It's the wrong kind of sparks that fly on their first meeting when Emily agrees to be her niece's chaperone at Ren Faire and she has to work under the ever present scrutiny of Simon who took over the reins as organizer from his brother. He runs a tight ship and has no idea what to do with Emily's easygoing and sarcastic nature. They goad each other constantly. At first Emily sees Simon as a humorless drill sergeant with no people skills but changes her mind when she sees how he exuberantly inhabits his role as a pirate at the faire. She also starts to develop a soft spot for him after learning about his family's history. For some odd reason, they get along better when they're in costume. During Ren Faire weekends Simon becomes lively and charismatic - totally opposite from weekday Simon. He woos Emily who has been cast as a bar wench and their dalliance (purely for the show, of course) is a smash with the regulars and visitors. Emily doesn't know what to make of this other side to Simon and begins to appreciate what the Faire and its participants mean to him.

Emily is at a strange crossroads in her life and living here has also given her ample time to consider what her next step should be. She always thought her stay was temporary but she's a natural people person and has been happily getting to know its inhabitants and assimilating to life there. The bonus is that it's brought her closer to her sister and this is something she ultimately cherishes. But it's one thing to be a visitor. Falling in love, remaining in town and embracing a full life here is a huge next step. If she does this it has to be for herself and not because of some guy. Been there, done that. It's her time now!

Having been to a couple of Ren Faires in the past I enjoyed the various references and images the story conjured up. It made me want to go to one again soon. Emily is also a huge Shakespeare nerd who'd instigate stuff with Simon which was highly entertaining. I admired Emily for her introspection as she as looked back on her own history and debated about her next course of action. There's also something about being in costume that releases inhibitions because it allows someone like Simon, who shoulders so much responsibility, to let loose. Emily and Simon are a good team and it was nice to root for them as a couple. The story is also full of side characters that added to the fuzzy feels of this book.

Well Met is all sorts of good fun with a happily ever after befitting its central characters. It also has me wishing that summer would never end!

~ Bel

Thank you to Berkley / NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Renaissance Faires are not my thing apparently.

I'm going to be honest and let you know that I don't have a ton to say about this book.

It's an enemies-to-lovers romance novel set at a Renaissance Faire. Emily is taking her niece to the Faire after her mom is in an accident, and the kids have to have an adult with them during the Faire. Emily decides to stay and become a wench. She meets the host of the Faire, Simon, who took over for his deceased brother.

Sweet, fun, complicated characters in a hilarious setting. Obvious from the start who the love interests would be, but there journey and struggles were new and interesting.

Well Met is funny , romantic , entertaining but unfortunately, not special ...
" Enemies to lovers " trope isn't one of my favourites , but some authors have special touch that makes me love it . When I read Well Met I didn't feel that .
The characters and writing style were good . I loved some side characters more than the main couple , I was kinda uninterested with their story ..
In General , romance readers who like " Enemies to lovers " trope will like this one .

The opportunity to help her sister and her teenaged niece after her sister’s accident, could not have come at a better time for Emily whose own life is in transition. She did not anticipate having to volunteer at the local Renaissance Faire with her niece, however. It doesn’t seem like it will be so bad at first. At least not until she meets Simon, the man in charge of the volunteers. Simon takes the Renaissance Faire very seriously. It is his brother’s legacy after all. Simon and Emily butt heads right from the start. He seems uptight and she is more lighthearted. While the two do not seem to care for each other in their real life personas, once Simon dons his costume, it is as if he is a different person—and Emily cannot help but flirt back. Still, she wonders which persona is real. Is it all an act or is there something growing between them?

This was such a fun read, and I loved every minute of it. This enemy to lovers romance is swoon-worthy and charming, as well as smart and funny. Emily has been through a lot as has Simon. Both are well-developed characters whom I fell in love with myself. I wanted so much for them to have their happy ending. I enjoyed their Shakespeare banter and playful teasing. I cried with them, both in sadness and joy, laughed with them, and wish I could jump right into a Renaissance Faire myself (I think there is one nearby in the spring . . . ). Well Met is one of those novels that left me with a silly grin on my face at the end.

Such a fun read! I was super excited when my friend told me about a book set in a Ren Faire!

I loved this enemies-to-lovers story. The setting was unique, the characters were all believable and funny, and I loved the proposal at the end! Emily was somewhat annoying to me at times, but she had also been hurt in the past so I understand why she was acting the way she was. I wanted to shake her and tell her quit being so self-conscious! But honestly, I know I’ve acted the same way she did. I was rooting for her to realize her worth!

Like most romances, this book had a great ending, but I want more! I loved getting to know Simon and Emily and I want to be involved in more of their life!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and feelings are my own.

Honestly, this was just such a freaking fun book to read! In a way that really has nothing to do with the book, other than having similar plot points, I was constantly reminded of the Renaissance Faire scenes in Gilmore Girls - and I was vividly reminded of how badly I wanted to go to a Ren Faire when I was younger! Then I thought about how much I still wanted to go to a Ren Faire, and then I looked up Ren Faires near me, and then I texted my girlfriends about a potential Ren Faire we could go to ... and, well, I think it's pretty cool if a book can create enough imagery and ideas about a world that it would cause you to kind-of go off the rails for a bit there.

But back to the book - I really enjoyed reading it! I thought the MCs had good chemistry, and even though both of them were occasionally a bit much, it didn't bother me enough to detract from my enjoyment. I liked the way their relationship came together, and I loved getting to know more of their backstories, and again ... I just loved reading it! What more is there to say?

My main problem with this romance book is that I was interested in EVERYTHING else more than I was in the romance. The Renaissance Fair was a very new concept to me and I liked seeing it be put together and what not, I also liked seeing the main character find herself after she lost who she was in her previous relationship. But the actual romance? I didn't really get it? Especially not why Emily liked Simon so much when he spent 70% of the book just being so goddamn rude to her for no actual reason, just being in her vicinity made him huff and puff and turn into this grump that was exasperated by her breathing. Which means, they barely even talked to each other, and that made me understand the romance even less.

Listen, I love me some good enemies to lovers as much as the same person, but this? I didn't buy it, I need to buy the enemy part but nothing about it was convincing, especially since it was one sided and just pretty much a girl falling for your classic Asshole With a Tragic Backstory. And there isn't a single romance trope I'm tired of more than I am tired of this one. I could have even forgiven this if there were some chemistry between them but...there wasn't, I just couldn't buy them as a couple which means I wasn't invested in them and didn't root for them to get together. Not until the very end, where everything was resolved and they started actually talking to each other. That's the only part of the romance I actually enjoyed, and even then the book did such an abrupt 180 that it felt like an entirely different couple.

And last thing I want to talk about, which might seem petty but is just a pet peeve of mine in any sort of media is that the phrase "His eyes looked almost dull brown until you saw them in the light and they had so much color" (not word for word but almost). Again? Are we still in the early 2000s? How are we still calling brown eyes dull in the year of our lord 2019? Anyway. That was just something that's been nagging at me so I couldn't not mention it.

This book was absolutely adorable and such a great love story.
Emily finds herself drafted into volunteering at the annual Ren Faire when a family emergency requires that she move to the small town of Fall Creek to care for her niece. Simon, the Faire organizer, is not impressed with Emily and he lets her know it. But when Emily adopts the persona of Emma the bar wench and Simon transforms into Hawthorne the pirate their alter egos love each other. Can that love cross over into real life or is it limited to the Middle Ages?
The author didn’t take any shortcuts in developing an entire cast of wonderful characters. I am really picky when it comes to contemporary romance because I feel like so much of it lacks actual romance but this story was hip, humorous, smart, sexy and full of heart.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkeley for sharing an ARC so that I could provide an honest review.

Pro tip: when in Chapter One your heroine encounters a large, generically hot blond man whose muscles are explicitly compared to Gaston’s and who is happy to wear a kilt and be ogled by everyone at the Renaissance Faire … no way is that guy the hero.
No, the hero is the dark-haired, uptight, incredibly irritating man with the clipboard, who in the heroine’s words, “would be relatively attractive if he weren’t looking at me like he’d caught me cheating on my chemistry final.”
That’s because romantic comedies live and die on the specifics. The swooniest parts are always context-dependent: Kate Moseley and Doug Dorsey finally nailing the Pamchenko Twist; Harry’s New Year’s Eve list of Sally’s quirks; Lucy In her booth finding a wedding ring clinking down instead of a subway token, and looking up into the smiling faces of Jack and his family.
Or, in this case, a golden cord and a pirate earring at a small-town Renaissance Faire.
Jen DeLuca’s debut is sweet and snappy and light as a lemon tart: Emily Parker has moved to Willow Creek after a breakup to help her sister and niece recover from a serious car accident. Her niece is desperate to be involved in the local Faire with all her friends, and she can’t audition unless an adult volunteers along with her. Her mother is still recuperating, so Emily channels her unfinished English major and signs on as a tavern wench—and immediately has a run-in with the man running the Faire, a starchy, scowly English teacher named Simon, who has his own issues with family and the Faire.
This is the pure undiluted enemies-to-lovers stuff, and it packs a wallop. Reading this book made me feel like a teenager just discovering romance for the first time: the heroine’s hurt and self-doubt, the need to decipher the hero’s true feelings (we stay in Emily’s POV the whole book), the courage it takes Emily to realize she’s worthy of love, how it feels to be tangled in a social and familial web of obligation and loyalty that can either hold you back or hold you up.
It's a whole functioning world in here, and I hope to get a chance to revisit.

this was super cute! loved the setting, nothing like i've read before.
i really liked emily in the beginning, though she did get on my nerves a wee bit later on - i just can't handle inconsistency with characters to fit the story. like she'd freak out about something without giving it time to come about naturally, but then something else very obvious would go over her head or she wouldn't worry about it.. it was just frustrating. i am a worrywart and constantly freak out about things well before i should, but even i give certain things a *little* time before talking about them. it just seemed a bit.... i don't know. contrived to give the story some odd conflict? miscommunication without giving the characters a bit of time to actually communicate? i don't know. might just be me. also, i did like simon, though he had his flaws. i couldn't quite get a grasp on his character... and i was not wooed by certain things.. in fact, i was cringing so hard i had to close my eyes. the ending was cute, but i am more a fan of the smaller gestures than the grand gestures, personally. i really liked the setting and the side characters, they did make the story for me. i know it sounds like i hated it, but not at all. i still enjoyed it despite the things that bugged me, and i'd read another from this author. overall it was cute and i liked the writing. probably more like 3.5, but rounding up.