In Well Met, Emily has just gone through a bad breakup; when her sister is in a serious car accident she picks up and moves from Boston to a small town in Maryland to help her recover as well as watch her niece. The niece, Caitlin, wants to volunteer in the town's Renaissance Faire, but the catch is she needs an adult to join the fair as a chaperone. Emily reluctantly agrees and becomes a tavern wench. At the fair she butts heads with Simon, who runs the fair and teaches English at the local high school. I really liked the Renaissance Faire setting - it was really fun! I also liked the small town's inhabitants - they, too, were fun; I especially liked buff gym teacher Mitch and Emily's bubbly friend Stacey. I thought they were super welcoming, but Emily struggles with fitting in in a place where everyone else has a long history together and gossip spreads rapidly. Emily's prior relationship was really bad, and she's still working through insecurity; she does a LOT of emotional labor for other people in this book. It was kind of stressful. And I really wasn't sure why she was into Simon. This is an enemies-to-lovers book, so they don't get along at all at first, but I couldn't figure out why Emily started to like Simon. He's just pretty mean to her until suddenly he's not. Ultimately I didn't think he was a bad guy, but I just didn't think their relationship was well developed enough for me to be convinced. There were also a lot of public speeches that were (for me) a little cringeworthy. Overall this one was fun and I enjoyed the various characters as well as Emily's arc about finding her place in the community, but I didn't buy the romance.

Emily is trying her hardest. After a breakup that left her homeless, she goes home to tend to her sister and niece who were in a car accident. While there she decides to volunteer for the Renaissance Faire so that her underage niece can be part of it. Then she meets the man in charge, Simon, who doesn't leave a great impression but then she starts learning more about him.
I couldn't warm up to Simon. He was too hot and cold. Considering that Emily was still dealing with emotional fallout from her last relationship, she didn't need his uncertain ways. I've never cheered so much for a third act break up before.

This was cute as hell! Our protagonist, Emily, is staying with her sister after both their lives get upended and she gets roped into volunteering at the local renaissance faire with her niece. Cue an enemies to lovers situation with the uptight faire director, a theater-kid-esque sense of camaraderie among Emily and her new faire friends, plus a good sprinkling of Shakespeare jokes and you’ve got a rom com formula to keep me up past my bedtime. I thought Simon and Emily had excellent chemistry and the way the author handles the heavier personal issues they each have going on is respectful and character-revealing without weighing down the overall lighthearted tone of the story.

When Emily moves to small town American to help take care of her sister and niece, she's up for a change. What she didn't expect was to get recruited to volunteer for the annual summer Renaissance Faire or to work in the local bookstore. This is a fun summer read for fans of books, medieval festivals, or Shakespeare (although do note that Shakespeare is not permitted at the actual faire...it's a thing.) A cute romance but also a thoughtful look at family obligations and responsibilities for finding our own happiness.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free ARC of this novel. Regardless of the way I acquired the novel, the thoughts, opinions, and views stated in this review are completely unbiased and one hundred percent my own.

I am a sucker for anything historical, so the fact that a majority of this story takes place during a Renaissance Faire had me hook, line, and sinker.

I really liked how much this novel focused on the challenges of starting over, and creating a space for yourself in a new place. Our main character, Emily, deals with a pretty nasty, possibly traumatic, breakup that leads her back to her sister and niece, who live in a very small town. After being persuaded into joining the Renaissance Faire, our MC finally begins to integrate herself into a community she can call her own. The insecurities she’s left with after the break up rear their head periodically throughout the novel, making Emily’s journey way harder than it ever needed to be. But I’m sure we’ve all been there at one time or another.

I loved so much about the setting and the characters of this book. When we weren’t interacting with wenches, pirates, or men in kilts at the Faire, we were setting up a bookshop and taking book orders from the local English teacher. I swear, all of these things are so on brand for me I could have written this novel myself (but I’m very thankful to Jen for writing it for me to devour instead!). I thought the romance was paced incredibly well, and the chemistry was off the charts!

I did find myself getting frustrated with how naive and damaged Emily was, which I admit isn’t fair at all. Things seemed very obvious to me the reader, but those same things would take Emily hearing the explanation from another character before she could catch up to what was actually going on. I’m not sure if that was an intentional character trait or not, but it felt like Emily was really emotionally underdeveloped for her age. Her trust and abandonment issues, while initially annoying, were spot on for the trauma Emily had experienced from her ex leaving her. While I found that quality annoying, I had to concede that it was an accurate representation of someone trying to form new relationships post trauma.

Overall, this was an incredibly fun book. I laughed out loud reading this more than I have reading anything in a very long time. It was so adorable, and left me incredibly nostalgic for the Renaissance Faire I missed out on last year in my own home town. I’ll definitely be going this year, and who knows. Maybe I’ll find my own pirate this time.

What a gem! I'm not sure what I expected when I opted to pick up this book from NetGalley, but it exceeded my expectations!

After her sister and niece are involved in a serious car accident that leaves her sister unable to walk, Emily moves in to be of help. When her niece desperately wants to take part in the town's annual Renaissance Faire, Emily is drafted right along with her. She is immediately swept up into the Faire mania that grips the town and she befriends several other cast members including kilt-wearing Mitch. There is one person she can't stand, and that's Faire organizer Simon, whose persnickety attitude rubs her the wrong way from day one.

This book had everything: an adorable romance, a sisterly bond, a small town bookstore, and most of all - a Renaissance Faire which sounded so amazing that I am going to have to check out my local Faire this year.

I tend to not purchase a lot of books - I mostly utilize my local library - given the number of books I read, but I will be purchasing this one. Especially since I haven't been able to put it down.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start by saying that this is Jen's debut novel, and I was blown away. This was so such a sweet and charming story. I read Well Met as part of #Summerathon and I couldn't be happier it was the perfect summer read. I finished this book in 48 hours because I just couldn't put it down. I adore stories set in small towns. Willow Creek had all the small town glamour that I just eat up. This book gave me all the warm and fuzzy feelings, I want to jump on a plane and fly to Michigan to attend a Faire so badly !!

After a recent breakup, Emily moves in with her sister, who was recently in a car accident and is on the mend and her niece Caitlin. Emily takes her niece, Caitlin, to sign up for the local Renaissance Faire that happens every summer, as a fundraiser for the high school. Upon arrival she is told that Caitlin needs a parent or guardian to be involved in order to participate. Emily soon becomes a  tavern wench every weekend for the summer.

“I didn’t choose the wench life. The wench life chose me.”

Emily- I loved Emily and her journey to discovering that she is worthy of love. I loved her friendship with Stacey and how supportive they are of each other. I also really liked her love for literature and how much she cared about her family.

Simon - He is the English teacher at the high school, and runs the Faire. He plays the swoonworthy pirate Captain Blackthorne. One of my favorite things about this book is the banter between Emily and Simon. There shared loved for literature and quoting Shakespeare was just everything!

I loved everything about this book. The small-town setting, the summer Ren Faire, the wonderful cast of characters. If your looking for a fun summer romance I highly recomend this book, and I cannot wait to see what Jen writes next.

Emily has moved to Willow Creek, Maryland, to take care of her sister and niece who were in a major car accident. She could do this because her life took a bad turn when the fiance she quit college for to put him through law school has decided that an up-and-coming lawyer doesn't need to be hooked up with a college dropout. Emily is feeling both betrayed and adrift since all of her plans for the future were derailed.

Emily is between the ages of her fourteen-year-old niece and her thirty-eight year old sister at just coming up on twenty-five. She really doesn't know her sister very well because of the large age difference but she is eager to help. That's her personality. She sees a problem and wants to fix it.

When her niece wants to be part of the summer Renaissance Faire in her town, she needs an adult to volunteer with her. Emily volunteers and finds herself filling the role of a wench at the only tavern in the faire. Besides her niece's need, Emily is intrigued by Mitch who is well-muscled and spends the faire in a kilt. She is less than intrigued with Simon who is one of the organizers of the faire. She finds him rigid and humorless.

It takes the whole summer and quite a few misunderstandings before she finds the right guy and the right future for herself. I loved the banter between the characters. I loved the Renaissance Faire setting. The romance was slow-building but heated up nicely.

"I didn't choose the wench life. The wench life chose me."

Emily Parker's life got up-ended at probably the best/worst possible time. Leaving behind heartbreak and dead-ends in the city, Emily moved to Willow Creek, Maryland, to take care of her sister and niece after a horrific car accident. When Caitlin wants to participate in the town's annual fundraiser, a Renaissance Faire, Emily thinks she'll just be continuing her role as chauffeur to her niece. Nope, she's now a part of the Faire Life, too. The promise of a hot guy in a kilt every weekend may have had something to do with that...

The only real downside is that Emily has to deal with Simon, the Faire's organizer and high school English teacher. He micromanages, grits his teeth at the thought of change, and butts heads with Emily. But the more she becomes involved in the Faire, the more she gets to know him and why the Faire is so important to him. Even then, it still comes as a shock when the first day of Faire arrives and instead of serious Simon, she meets Captain Blackthorne, who flirts and teases and is incredibly charming. And don't get her started on the leather pants. (One word: "Huzzah!")

Soon, Emily's summer is going in a completely different direction than she thought it would be. But what about her heart?

"Well Met" is a fantastic first novel from Jen DeLuca, and definitely not the "summer romance" book that comes to mind but definitely one to enjoy whether you like to spend your summers at the beach, at a Ren Faire, on the couch, or anywhere in the world. If you enjoy nerdy discussions about Shakespeare (even when they teeter on the border of conspiracy theory talk), thoughts of men in kilts and leather pants (and the men wearing these items dueling each other in physical combat), snark, and feel good stories, "Well Met" is for you! I'm eager to see what DeLuca will write next, and perhaps hopefully see a return to Willow Creek to see more of the fantastic cast of characters.

Well Met is a surprisingly emotional romance set in the world of a small-town renaissance fair. I was completely blindsided by how attached I became to the characters.

I very much enjoyed this debut romance! I enjoy enemies to lovers, when it is written well, and this romance is written well. Both Emily and Simon had well constructed arcs in the story. Emily's journey from listlessness and feeling adrift to finding a purpose in the small town was beautiful. Many people can relate to that, where something stops the trajectory of your path, like Emily's boyfriend breaking up with her after she devoted many years to helping him achieve his goals. Emily has her own grief to tend to, as Simon does as well. I also appreciated that Emily's arc included the strengthening of her relationship with her sister. I have never been to a Renaissance Faire, but now I want to find one to go to! Great debut!

I really enjoyed the premise of the story, and it was what initially drew me in. I have never been to a Faire (or participated in one) so I enjoyed seeing and hearing the characters talk about the preparation and what goes on throughout the entire experience.

However, I did feel that at times the story dragged on a bit too long or was constantly going in the same circles. There were a few moments I felt that parts could have been cut, so that we could have reached the climax sooner. Certain parts were a bit too predictable for me and I would have liked more subtleties in the writing, but overall I did enjoy the story and the main characters. Some of the background characters began to annoy me (they were all a bit TOO chipper), but with the romance being the central focal point of the story, that is what kept me going and made this hard to put down!

Emily has come to help her sister who was badly injured in an automobile accident and plans to leave when her sister is better. Little did she know that she would become involved in a renaissance faire as a result of taking her teenage niece to the sign up for a part in the fair. Emily finds herself volunteering to help and is given the part of a wench. Personalities clash when she meets Simon, the fair's leader. Simon is a true introvert and Emily is an outgoing person with a well-tuned sense of humor. When the fair starts and Simon takes on the role of knight to Emily's wench, Simon becomes outgoing and chivalrous. He becomes Emily's suitor and Emily can't stop thinking about him. Which is the real Simon? Can he and Emily get along when he is not in costume?

This was a very enjoyable book. The characters are likable the author has a great sense of humor. Some of the asides made by the main character had be laughing out loud. There was a little too much drama the last quarter of the book, which made the pace slow down and wasn't quite as much fun. Overall, though, it was a very fun read.

While I personally am not a frequent attender of Renaissance Fairs myself, this book made me want to rethink that. I really enjoyed the concept of this book. Two people who let their past affect their present. One who can't get out of his dead brother's shadow, and another who thinks everyone sees her the same way her ex did.

Emily is a strong woman, who just got out of a bad relationship. She's exceptionally sweet and giving, but her a**hole of an ex is always in the back of her mind telling her she isn't good enough. I loved seeing her character grow and begin to believe in herself.

I also don't blame Emily for falling for the usually uptight Simon's, swoony pirate Renaissance Fair character. I really enjoyed Emily and Simons interactions, it certainly gives the book and enemies to lovers vibe, which Is one of my favorite tropes. My only complaint is that I would have liked to spend a little more time watching Simon and Emily's relationship grow.

This book was a very cute romantic comedy with absolutely delightful characters!

This book was not my favorite but it's not like there is anything super wrong with it or anything. It just didn't really do anything special for me. The pacing was a bit off, I think, or just not how I would have preferred it. Usually with a hate-to-love there is some chemistry pretty early on but it took a long time for the spark to appear.

All that being said, I would still say give it a try if you like Ren Faires and romance. Maybe if Ren Faires are your passion, you’ll like the extra time spent on the day-to-day operations of preparing for the season to start.

I went to ALA annual this year, and I made sure to stop by the Penguin Random House adult booth, so I could tell them how thrilled I am with what Berkley has been doing lately. I know it’s not just Berkley that’s bringing contemporary romance, particularly romantic comedies, back to popularity, but I do feel like they’re leading the charge, with the adorable covers and the widest range of titles. What’s been great so far is how good they’ve been too, though I do think Well Met just might be my favorite one so far.

Well Met takes place primarily at a Renaissance Fair in a small town. The setting was part of the book’s appeal for sure, and I think DeLuca used it very effectively. Renaissance Fairs are a very specific setting, and, if you’ve been to one, you can picture everything perfectly in your mind without needing too much description. DeLuca does enough building to make it feel real but doesn’t get too caught up in the detail, allowing the focus to remain on the emotional arcs in the book.

Well Met is one of those books that snuck up on me a little bit. I liked it from the beginning, but I didn’t love it until I got further into it. Emily’s voice starts out a wee bit distant, precisely because that’s how she’s feeling. She’s in the town of Willow Creek for the summer to help her sister recover from a car accident; Emily’s boyfriend had dumped her anyway, and she didn’t care about her jobs, so she had the ability to do it. This summer’s meant to be her time to figure out what to do next, but mostly it’s an escape from worrying about real life.

Emily ends up signing up to volunteer for the Faire because her niece really wants to take part, and an adult volunteer is required to join up with a teen. Initially, Emily’s not super into it, but she wants to make her niece happy. Over time, Emily gets sucked in, and she wants to help improve the Faire, which leads to her butting heads with Simon, the crotchety, rule-following head of Faire. If you smell a ship in the air, you have apt senses.

Emily and Simon have such a great connection. If you’re here for hate to love, be warned that it’s definitely on the lighter side of hate to love. The description definitely oversells it with “two sworn enemies,” because wow they’re super not. They’re two people going through some things who come into a bit of conflict. There’s a very Pride & Prejudice feeling to the romance, because it’s very much that they each make a set of assumptions based on an inaccurate interpretation.

Even though Emily takes an immediate dislike to Simon for how seriously he takes everything and his attitude towards her, I thought it was adorable how hard it was for her to maintain that loathing. It’s so clear that Emily’s naturally a trusting, loving person who thinks the best of others, because the moment Simon did anything remotely nice, she would think better of him. Their dynamic is a bit all over the place actually, with the way she feels about him shifting constantly, but in this book that actually works, because it’s a conflict between her natural personality and her insecurities as a result of the way her toxic ex treated her.

Well Met runs pretty low drama, which obviously is great for me. All the drama of the book feels very true to life, even if people are in costume for most of it. This is a book that’s all about character arcs, especially Emily and Simon’s (you know I love a romance where the hero also has an emotional arc that actually gets handled).

On top of that, I really loved the way that Emily fell in love with the town and its inhabitants. It truly felt like she wanted to stay not because of Simon but because she felt at home here. I love found family vibes, and there’s a bit of that happening here, like with Chris at the bookstore. Also, the whole town ships it, and it’s fucking cute.

The other aspect of Well Met that really worked for me was that it shows an alternative life path. Emily didn’t finish her English degree because she agreed to wait until her boyfriend got his law degree, and now that he’s dumped her she’s not sure whether to go back and finish. She feels less than because she didn’t graduate from college, but she’s also not sure if that’s the right choice at this point in her life. One of the emotional arcs in the book is Emily overcoming that feeling of being less because she didn’t finish out her education, and I thought that was great in a time where college is absurdly expensive but sort of assumed the default path.

You and Well Met will definitely be well met. Make sure you pick up a copy of this one. It’s just as adorable as its cover.

My heart is so full of joy right now.

This very quickly became a new favourite romcom. It was so funny, really sweet, full of heart, and a complete delight.

I never would have thought the world needed a romcom set at a ren faire, but it turns out the world did need it, and Well Met delivered and then some.

Emily was a fantastic narrator. Considering how badly she’s been burned in the past, all of her self-doubt and hesitations felt so realistic and my heart broke for her. Watching her grow over those couple months and figuring out how to set down roots for herself was a beautiful experience. I loved the relationship between her and Simon. I really enjoyed that how they grew together.

A stunning debut. I will be recommending this to my contemporary loving friends, and likely reread it myself every summer.

This book was so fun! The setting was great, and all of the characters had interesting back stories and histories that wove into the story line. I would have liked to see Emily make a few more choices rather than having things handed to her, but overall, I loved the story!

OhMyGosh. This book was so cute.
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I’m a sucker for an enemies to lovers trope and this one did not disappoint. I adored the renaissance fair backdrop. It was absolutely fun and romantic.
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I loved the chemistry between the characters and the steam level was perfect. I would highly recommend this quick, fun read!!