Spoilers below
When I started read the book, I got really excited because I could feel myself connecting to Stacey right from page one.
Stacey is lonely and on a whim decides to message one of the members of an act in the Faire with who she had an on and off no strings attached relationship . That message leads to constant back and forth and Stacey realises she’s falling in love with Dex who seems completely different online. Little does she know that it’s not Dex but someone completely different on the other side of the screen.
The book started out strong and I loved Stacey but when our hero does make an appearance everything goes downhill. Daniel never makes an effort in that relationship. It’s always Stacey who has to push past everything and work to get it going and that just frustrated me to no end. So although I wanted to love this book because of Stacey, Daniel ended up ruining it for me.
I am going with 2.5stars

Thank you so much @BerkleyRomance & @NetGalley for giving me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | September 2020)

SYNOPSIS | Stacey loves spending her Summers pouring drinks at the Renaissance Faire, but when Emily & Simon announce their engagement she realizes that she never intended to stay in the little town of Willow Creek. She had dreams of making it & meeting "the one" when in reality she is stuck in a job that she doesn't really like, having a summer fling with a band-member of the The Dueling Kilts. While he is very easy on the eye, she never felt that emotional connection with him until they started emailing

WHAT I LIKED:
- those Renaissance Faire vibes
- another sweet & slow burn romance
- that email & text exchanges were included
- Emily & Simon's relationship is still blossoming in book 2

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- the Goodreads synopsis is super spoilery
- i'm personally not the biggest fan of the miscommunication trope

Well Played is book 2 in the 'Well Met' series. I loved Well Met so I couldn't wait to read this one. This book centers around Stacey. She is still living in the small town of Willow Creek and this is not what she planned. But she couldn't not take care of her mom.

After hearing about Simon and Emily's wedding, she begins to think about the dreams she had for herself. She also realizes that she wants to find that special someone in her life.

She does get excited when the Faire comes back to town. She is swooning hard for the lead singer of the Dueling Kilts, Dex. When she comments on one of his social media posts she is surprised when she starts receiving messages from who she thinks is Dex.

The exchanges are sweet and cute and yet readers are on the edge of their seat waiting to see if Stacey will find her HEA.

I give Well Played 4 stars. I thought it was a great second book in the series. It gave fans of the first book a glimpse at Simon and Emily's life while making readers fall in love with a new story and main characters. I will definitely be reading more of Jen DeLuca's work.

I did not finish this book. I found the main character to be absolutely insufferable, and I did not like the catfish storyline at all. This makes me so sad because Well Met was one of my absolute favorite romance reads.

A cute follow-up to Well Met, and just as enjoyable as the original. I loved these characters and the return to Willow Creek and the Faire. Jen DeLuca is definitely an auto-read author for me now.
Many thanks to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy.

A great sequel! Love the ren fair world and the romance that follows. I was so happy to see Simon and Emily again and loved the relationship between Daniel and Stacy. Would recommend

Falling in love with someone you can’t see is a hallowed literary trope, the stuff of Greek myths and fairy tales. Almost equally ancient is the romance of mistaken identity—a cocktail of comedy and pathos deftly exploited by Shakespeare and Shaw, Cyrano de Bergerac and The Scarlet Pimpernel. In the age of dating apps, online avatars, and identity theft, the secret or borrowed identity finds fresh traction in three new romance novels.

In Well Played, Jen DeLuca’s sequel to Well Met, a tipsy texting mishap leads Renaissance Faire tavern wench Stacey Lindholm into an online flirtation with Dex MacLean, a hunky, kilted guitarist who tours the Faire circuit with his Irish folk band. Or so she thinks. It soon becomes clear—to the reader, if not to Stacey—that she’s actually sexting his cousin, Daniel, the band’s mild-mannered manager. While the setup echoes Cyrano de Bergerac, DeLuca doesn’t romanticize the horrors of modern dating. As Stacey points out: “In this century we don’t go straight for a Cyrano reference. We call it catfishing.”

Of course, Stacey is hiding behind a false identity of her own. Her easy smile and picture-perfect Instagram feed mask her fears over her mother’s precarious health–and her resulting frustration at being stuck in her small hometown caring for her, while her friends (including Simon and Emily, the hero and heroine of Well Met) are getting married, getting pregnant, and generally getting on with their lives. Both Stacey and Daniel have to come clean before their unconventional courtship can lead to an equally unconventional happy ending.

I didn't like the story line, I felt like the female protagonist gave Daniel too many chances. Her reactions to his lies weren't strong enough and every time she forgave him easily. I still loved the faire as the backdrop, and the characters from the previous story but the new love story wasn't up to the mark.

Her first book is still one of my favourites!

I adored Well Met, but I never fell in love with Stacey's hero in this romance. Truly, he didn't deserve her, and we readers never really got to know him. He's off page most of the book, and we mostly get Stacey's reactions to his words, which while very sweet, made me suspicious. She also forgave him for fooling her so quickly, and then had to be the one to track him down for the big grand gesture at the end. I wondered if having a dual POV would have helped, but honestly it was more the fact they were barely together on page.

I loved seeing Simon and Emily plan and have their wedding and DeLuca's writing is sparkling, but overall the premise just did not work for me. I was pleased to see Mitch & April interacting a bit in this story and have high hopes for their book which is up next.

I received a free ARC from Netgalley for review.

2.5

I'll be honest, I was disappointed. I really loved Well Met and was looking forward to book 2, but it fell really flat for me.
Stacey was sweet but too agreeable for me, I mean...Daniel pretends to be someone else for months and she just...gets over it? I don't know. I fount it a bit too predictable and would almost have preferred a non renaissance fair setting. The fair was such an amazing background in book one but felt forced in book two.

And were back to the Renaissance Fair and I couldn’t be happier. Well Met was one of my favourite reads of 2019 and new I needed Well Played. I am so glad it was so good just not as good as Well Met I have soft spot for enemies to lovers. Stacey is our heroine and I really enjoyed her a character and found that she was highly relatable. The love interest was a cinnamon roll and just wanted to pinch his cheeks. Overall, Well played is fun, sexy romantic read and cannot wait to read her next book.

I really loved Well Met and was ecstatic when I found out there was a sequel coming out for this book centered around Stacey! Unfortunately, I was not as impressed this time around - but maybe this one just wasn’t for me.

In a world we live in there is a huge problem with catfishing on the internet (like hello we got an entire mtv series dedicated to cracking those cases and uncovering true identities) which is why I find issue with the fact that this book features a lot of this concept.

One of the main characters pretends to be someone else for the majority of the book - and that just isn’t okay. Maybe this is more realistic or a plot then I realize and happens to more people but it just felt, i don’t know... wrong?

Also, we met Stacey in the first book. She was definitely not someone who would take any crap - I actually LOVED her in the first book. Yet, here she is forgiving lies time and time again. What happened to her? Where is her self love and self worth? I spent a lot of the book upset with her!

I also felt this book romanticized the idea of a toxic relationship, and there’s so many issues with that in today’s world that I just don’t think we need anymore of it, personally.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the next book is more true to the first one and not as problematic... but I can’t in good conscience recommend this one.

3.25 Stars / 2 Steam Fans

I may have an unpopular opinion, but I feel that characters from Well Met overshadowed the storyline and characters in Well Played. I discuss my issues during the vlog.

Video review available in Week 43: Oct 18 – Oct 24 weekly book reviews and the Week of Netgalley Vlog, Episode 6 (coming soon).

For other video book reviews, check out my YouTube Channel: Steph's Romance Book Talk.

Not as enjoyable as the first in the series but still a good lighthearted romp with a nice nerdy undertone. My main criticisms are that the device used to create the tension between the two romantic leads felt a bit thin at times and the reconciliations were therefore thin as well. The main female lead was too bubbly for my personal taste but was a well written and fully developed character.

Worth a read, especially if you enjoyed Well Met.

I enjoyed reading about the characters from Well Met again and enjoyed this novel. Some parts were unbelievable but overall, I really like Stacey and hope there will be a third in the series to follow Emily's sister.

I honestly wasn’t a big fan of this book. The story seemed to go on and on and on, I found myself skimming and kind of bored with it.

Another winner from Jen DeLuca!

I really loved Stacey's story! She is a fun character and was easy to relate to. I was definitely living vicariously through her and "Dex's" email/text romance.

This book is a little hard to review since I can't really say much without spoiling stuff. If you read the book blurb though, it is revealed that it's not Dex who Stacey has been communicating with. Say what? Oh, there's going to be some more of those moments in the book and you may want to throat punch a character or five.

And there's most definitely a lot of Renaissance Faire action in the story and plenty of page time with many of the awesome characters from the first book! I really enjoyed Well Played and I'm looking forward to the next book!

I enjoyed WELL MET enough but found myself enjoying it a lot less than others – I was really annoyed by Emily’s second-guessing of everything and assuming the worst at all times. I’ll admit that Stacey did that a little in this book too, but to a lesser extent.

Anyways, this was a hit for me comparatively! This story centers around Stacey, fellow tavern wench from book one, and her budding digital romance. She writes a note to Dex, her hookup buddy from one of the ren faire bands, and suggests she may want more. She’s shocked to receive a thoughtful reply and eventually the two are texting or emailing each day. She later finds out she’s actually been emailing with Daniel, Dex’s cousin, and has to reconcile the lies before moving forward with the butterflies she’s feeling.

I liked that this story went from the end of one ren faire summer, throughout the year emailing and texting, and into the next ren faire season. It helped put over just how long the two were corresponding and how deep the relationship was. When she found out it was actually Daniel, she was willing to forgive the catfishing because of their connection and see how it worked offline. I saw some reviewers say that she forgave him a bit too quickly, which I can totally see too.

As usual, it was so fun to see the ren faire and wish for better times! I did end up going to the local one last summer after I read this book and it was really enjoyable to connect the books to what I saw. I could see why people want to volunteer.

The ending was really awesome and appropriate given what you learn about Stacey throughout the book. The next book promises to be about two of my favorite side characters and I am THRILLED to read their story!

Thoroughly enjoyed this rom-com read! Well written and highly enjoyable characters. The plot twist is a little bit predictable but still enjoyable.

This book was not for me and I found it very problematic.

A lot of this book is cat fishing and I didn’t like it! I didn’t like the lying the main character did and how he didn’t own up to it until so much later.
The main character Stacey gets drunk one night and messages the ground FB account that Dex, her previous hookup works her and she thinks she’s messaging him but she’s actually messaging his cousin Daniel. Daniel pretends to be Dex for a good part of the book and it was sickening to look back on after you find out he is lying. I had a hard time reading this book, especially since I LOVED the first one.

The hardest part of this book is that Stacey gets over it and he lies about something else and she gets over it again. Stacey has no self worth and she is so desperate to be in a relationship that she will continue to forgive Daniels lying. I just wanted to yell at Stacey and with her friends would’ve pointed things out to her! She needed closer friends to help her steer clear of falling into this toxic relationship.

This book was a more about a toxic relationship than a romance book and I’m so glad I had a few warnings from book friends as I was reading it.

Hopefully the authors next book is more like her first and nothing like this one.