Hey all, Sam here.
Over the next couple months, I’m going to be mostly keeping the same rough schedule that I’ve had for a lot of this year, with hopefully a few more reviews than I’ve been posting. But my goal and hope and plan is to finally get back to a more frequent and consistent posting schedule for next year. I’m starting to sketch in an idea of a posting schedule and figuring out which blog series to focus on and bring back.
So I realized when I was trying to get my ducks in a row to start more regularly posting book reviews that I had missed a couple books in the Well Met (AKA Ren Faire Romance) series by Jen DeLuca. Now, since the fifth and final book was released in September (and I totally originally planned to have all of them reviewed back in September….but here we are now), I feel like this is the perfect time to correct the oversight.
I don’t want to do this series’ books one after the other because I want to give them each the space to be for a little while, so this may be a one a week or so schedule. But I do hope to have all three books I haven’t reviewed yet in this series posted for all of you…at least before the end of the year. So today we are looking at book two, and then I’ll work on finishing up my reviews for book three and then book five. My hope for the rest of this year is to get at least a couple book reviews out each week, so let’s see if I can actually stick to my plans and make that happen.
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 Thoughts
Rating: 5 stars
I will say that I re-read this book as a lead up to picking up the fifth and final book of the Well Met series, and it was a delightful time of revisiting old favorite stories at a pace of a book a day. It was I think my third or fourth read through of Stacey’s book, and every time it has just been like checking in on old friends. There’s a nice comfort to that. And I already know that this series will maintain a place of honor on my shelves. Plus I will definitely be re-reading these fairly regularly.
This is a small-town romance setting, and we get a nice set-up of the months leading up to the community Ren Faire, which gives a nice understanding of the relationship that is developing between Stacey and “Dex,” through a mix of e-mail and instant messaging. Since most of book one took place during the rehearsal/prep weeks and then the weeks of the Faire, it was nice to also see some of the time between Faires for this book. It shows us how Stacey doesn’t necessarily mind her life, but that she does also feel a bit stuck, and that is especially true once Emily and Simon get engaged.
I loved the exchange of messages Stacey has for the months leading up to the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire, and then the moment of surprise once Stacey finds out that she hasn’t been messaging Dex, her summertime fling, but instead the band’s manager Daniel. While yes, it is horrible that Daniel has been pretending to be Dex for months, and we should acknowledge that it wasn’t the best behavior on his part, I’m going to say there’s also a little bit of blame falling on Stacey for not realizing that it wasn’t Dex all along. She had known Dex for random hookups for a couple of years. She knew she hadn’t really had an emotional connection with him and that their conversations had been a bit lacking. So exchanging lengthy emails that make her feel things…come on girl, you could have figured that out sooner.
Obviously since this is a romance story Stacey does forgive Daniel for the months of lying (although it does still take her a little bit of time to think it through and process it). And after the confession there are moments where she worries that there will be more secrets or lies coming, which is a very valid concern considering. It’s clear to everyone though that Daniel and Stacey have fallen in love, and of course things inevitably work out.
All in all, I do think I enjoyed book one more than book two, but I still love them both. And while the Willow Creek Faire is very small, reading these books does give me enough of a familiar feeling of walking the lanes and seeing the shows when I’m missing my own favorite (and much bigger Faire).
All right, well that is all from me for today. I am going to go work on the draft for the third book in this series now and will have it up in a week or so (hopefully). Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
