Well Matched has a few elements that really shine, but unfortunately falls a bit flat overall. The story follows single mother April as she grapples with some major changes in her life, as her daughter is about to graduate from high school and she is considering moving so she can “press play” on her life again. Her counterpart, Mitch, is content with his career as a gym teacher and his part in the local renaissance faire, but can’t seem to get his family to respect what he does, so asks April to pretend to be his girlfriend for a family function to get them off his back. Some misunderstandings and some feelings and, of course, some sex follow until the couple truly comes together in the end.

April is an incredibly refreshing romantic lead. She is a single mother over 40 and has anxiety. There are moments of realization and strength she has throughout the book that not only endear the reader to her, but might also make them feel seen, as she learns to see her scars as markers of strength and comes to understand that people she distanced herself from, thinking they were judging her, in fact respect her and and have her back. April makes a lot of unreasonable assumptions throughout the book that may frustrate readers, but that also provide a window into how anxiety can manifest for some people. Overall, the book could have benefited from Mitch’s point of view as well as April’s, but she is a character deserving of her love story.

Returning readers may be disappointed by the book's marked shift in tone compared to what came before. DeLuca’s previous installments in this series, Well Met and Well Played, used the local ren faire as a focal point for all of the action and the faire really became the spirit of the books, but this story deviates from that. It’s use of the fake boyfriend trope also creates significantly less tension, romantic and otherwise, than the previously used enemies to lovers and mistaken identity tropes, which leaves the story plodding along a bit. Fans will be happy to see characters they recognize return, but even there there could have been more.

Good Morrow Bookworms,

After having read and loved Jen DeLuca's Well Met and Well Played, I was impatient to read the next installment of the series, Well Matched, starring Mitch, he of the kilt and little else. I mean, who among us has not been dying in anticipation to see the resident kind hearted Ren Faire beefcake get his happy ending? I was so impatient to read this, in fact, that I went ahead and asked the publisher nicely if I could read it early. *I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley for review consideration. You are still receiving my unbiased opinion because I have very little in the way of filters. Let's do this.* 

April has lived in Willow Creek for years, but she's never quite fully integrated into the community. April holds herself and her heart at a distance, because she's got plans. Once her daughter graduates high school, April intends to sell her house and leave the small town for a condo in the big city. April is freshly 40, and wants to try her hand at a different type of lifestyle. Perhaps get a feel for the life she may have had in her 20s had single parenthood not thrown her a curveball. (Not that she regrets it, of course, but April is ready for something new.) In order to get the house on the market, April has several home improvement projects ahead of her. With a limited budget and limited technical expertise, she turns to her friend Mitch for help.

April met Mitch through her sister's Renaissance Faire friends (you really need to read these books in order, go pick up Well Met , OK?) He has a reputation for being a flirt, the life of the party, and the dude who spends a few weeks each summer wearing a kilt and putting on a Scottish accent to the delight of Faire-goers. He's the high school gym teacher and a fitness buff, so nobody really objects when he decides to forgo his shirt whilst donning said kilt. Anywho. In exchange for his brute strength and DIY skills, Mitch asks April to be his (ahem) FAKE DATE for a family reunion weekend. A family reunion weekend wherein they travel out of town and soon discover that their hotel booking is for a single room with ONLY ONE BED.

Once they get back to town, the relationship only continues to feel more and more real, and not only because April and Kilty are totes hooking up. But what of April's plans? And her past? And Mitch's family complications? And the kilt? WHAT OF THE KILT?

I. Love. This. Book. Jen DeLuca knows her audience and she masterfully weaves together romance tropes with characters her readers already know and love. Well Matched is every bit as cute (and a lil bit more spicy) than the Well Met and Well Played. The Renaissance Faire setting is so delightful- it's such a fun little microcosm of people and interactions and cosplay. Turkey legs and corsets abound. Go ahead, put that flower crown on and snuggle up to enjoy this book. Huzzah!

This book is marketed as a rom com, but it's much closer to women's fiction, (but with that expected Happy Ever After that we expect in romance novels). While the book is broadly about April finding love, she's also finding a renewed purpose in life and figuring out who she really is in the process. While the pacing of this book is quite slow, the introspection gives us the opportunity to really get into April’s head and dive into the life she’s built for herself in Willow Creek. Her daughter is graduating from high school, and then she’ll be going off to university. April should be ecstatic--she’s wanted nothing more than to sell her house and leave this town behind. But this summer, she’s forced to confront what she really wants, and the true reason why Willow Creek has never truly felt like home, which has nothing to do with the town or its residents and everything to do with her and her outlook on life. 

The atmosphere of this book is tinged with melancholy. April is a forty-year-old divorcee. She broke up with her husband shortly after her eighteen-year-old daughter, Caitlin, was born, and she hasn’t had any serious relationships since. They moved to Willow Creek, but April resisted setting down roots. She has her book club, and her sister recently moved to town (Read Well Met for that epic tale!), but she doesn’t have much else tying her to this location. Even Mitch, who was delightful and cheery in the previous two books, seems a lot more subdued in this novel. He’s still got charisma, but it isn’t enough to make the contents of the book match its cheery blue cover.

Like the previous two books in this series, DeLuca has taken a common trope as the basis for this story. Mitch Malone asks April to be his fake girlfriend for a family gathering, and a lot of the expected clichés come out of it (sharing a bedroom--and a bed, etc.). My favourite part of the previous two books in this series--and subsequently this book--is the parts set at the Renaissance Faire. Unfortunately, the first half of this book is set before the faire rolls into town, and those chapters lacked the colour and flavour that I have come to love--and expect--in this series. Once the Faire does start, it’s still not quite the same, because the book is from April’s point of view, and she’s never been a huge fan of the Faire (or anything requiring any kind of participation or fun). DeLuca does make up for this later on in the book, but I was hoping for more than a few chapters set at the Renaissance Faire. It’s what makes this series truly unique, and it otherwise is just a rehashing of old tropes without a fresh new take on them.  Honestly, the scenes with Captain Blackthorne (the first book’s hero’s alter ego), made me nostalgic for the fun and renaissance faire-filled goodness from the first instalment in the series.

All in all, this is a quick read for fans of the fake girlfriend trope, but don’t go into it expecting the usual Willow Creek Renaissance Faire shenanigans.

I want to preface this by saying this is the first book I have read by Jen DeLuca and in this series, so I’m not sure if that alters my perception of it!

That being said, the book was really great! I love Mitch, and I was rooting for him and April the entire time. The spice was good, not too descriptive so if you prefer that, then you’ll love this book.

I wish they would give you half star reviews, because this would be a 3.5 for me. There were times where I was really irritated with April and had to convince myself to keep reading (for Mitch honestly), but I think the ending was perfect.

Also, not sure if it’s just the author’s writing style, but a lot of the scenes felt incredibly long and drawn out to me. I kept skipping forward to get to the more important parts before going back to get tiny details I missed. Overall it’s a good book, but I’m not too interested in reading the first two in the series.

I was really excited for this book because Mitch is such a magnetic character, I was really excited for his story. While I loved the fake-dating element obviously, it's really barely present and doesn't play a large part. I did think Mitch and April had solid chemistry- it wasn't explosive but it was there. Unfortunately, as the story progresses, April just started to annoy me more and more. I just was constantly frustrated but her choices and reactions. But April finding a place she feels settled was nice and the Ren Faire setting was once again fun.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Excellent addition to the series and glad to see April and Mitch being included as part of the longer story. I loved the mentions of Emily and Simon and Stacey and Daniel. The ending was a little rough, thinking that April took a couple of weeks to paint and prep so much before talking to Mitch seems odd, but still a great and cute story.

I had a little bit of trouble getting into it at first as Mitch seemed a little obnoxious (even though I loved him in the previous books), but as the pages flew by, I started to see myself in April when it comes to the anxious mess I can be and fell in love with those two. And the "fake partner" trope is always a hoot. Always very predictable, but always a hoot.

And Mitch.. I mean.. She really burrowed his way into my heart in the end there.

All in all, Jen really never disappoints. This is definitely one of my all time favorite series' and I can't wait to reread all of them! Y'all are in for a treat when this comes out in a month :)

This one was just OK for me. I'm finding more frequently that when a romance is only from one POV that it feels very 2-dimensional, and I think that was the case for this one.

April has appeared in the previous Well Met books as Emily's sister and mother of Caitlin, and she's paired with Mitch, the kilt-wearing, fun-loving coach/Simon's duel partner. April is in her early 40s and is staring down an empty nest as Caitlin heads off to college after the Ren Faire, and she's determined to get back to the life she thought she would have before she became a single mother. She agrees to be Mitch's fake girlfriend for a weekend in return for his assistance in updating her house to put on the market. The arrangement ends up being dragged out as things keep popping up, and April finds herself the topic of neighborhood gossip as Mitch's truck is spotted frequently at her place, which does NOT go over well with her following her painful divorce.

It's hard for me to write this because I liked the other books, but I wonder if it was because April was so adamant about not letting go and just enjoying herself in all aspects of her life that I didn't enjoy it. I get it, she's got some damage, but her character arc was difficult to get through for me. I still don't particularly see what chemistry she and Mitch had. I loved Mitch's character, but even with trying to demonstrate all the things he does for his community, he felt very 2-dimensional. I don't know what was going through Mitch's head at all with this other than that he was mad she kept trying to hide their relationship. I found myself super skimming so I could move on to my next ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my thoughts.

I...tried. I really did. I desperately wanted to recapture my initial enjoyment of 'Well Met' with all it's Renn Faire fun, and cutesy romance. This one did not do it for me. I just did <i>not</i> like April, and Mitch was such a flat character, that not even a wrestling match in a kilt, with a pirate could save him (it's a thing). Another character, Caitlin (April's teen daughter), was also just used as an excuse for everything. Caitlin hovered on the periphery, only summoned when we needed a reason for April being stubborn or to justify what she said/did/thought. I know she's not the MC, but I would have liked to see a little more personality from this teen daughter that you are centering your life around (though apparently, you later don't really care what she thinks/sees/hears).

I also missed banter between the characters. There was nothing. No teasing, no snark, no chemistry... There were such bland interactions that I don't think I would have cared if they didn't end up together at the end (is that a spoiler? It's a rom com novel...I don't think it is).

NetGalley kindly gave me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review.

Well Matched was a rom-com with a fake relationship trope. I enjoyed April’s character and how she was the hesitant one in moving forward rather than Mitch. April is a soon to be empty nester and a single mom looking to start her life. She didn’t expect to find it in the small town of Willow Creek.

Well Matched is the third book in the Well Met standalone series by Jen DeLuca. This series is set in a small town where they hold a Renaissance Faire every year. For eighteen years, April has put her daughter first, ignoring her own wants and needs. Now that her daughter is graduating from high school, she plans on hightailing it out of the small town where they live. She has never liked the small town life and it's the perfect time to sell her house and relocate to the city. When her friend, Mitch, asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend for a family function, she agrees on the condition that he help her fix up her house to put on the market. Their fake relationship begins a slide across those friendship lines even though April knows that their relationship can't go anywhere because she is leaving town.

I LOVE age-gap romances, especially one where the woman is older than the man. April is nearly ten years older than Mitch and although she thinks that's a big deal, Mitch doesn't even think twice about it. Just like everything else in his life, he does what he wants and what feels right to him, not thinking about what other people think. April, on the other hand, has a difficult time with opening herself up and worries about others judging her for dating Mitch.

April and Mitch have undeniable chemistry. They are like yin and yang. She is a reserved and thinks of herself as mundane. He is a fun-loving, charming, and easy going man. I love the ease with which he interacts with April, even in those moments when she is spiraling. He is just what she needs - someone who is optimistic, positive, and pushes her to follow her heart. Mitch s patient with April, knowing that she hasn't had much dating experience since she divorced her ex-husband. The ease and comfort they found with one another warmed my heart.

I can't write this review without mentioning Mitch's role in the Ren Faire. A hot man in a kilt, speaking in a Scottish accent and wielding a sword. YUM!!!

This was a quick, heartwarming, and a bit of a steamy read that I really enjoyed. It's my favorite of the series!

Steam level: 🔥🔥½-🔥🔥🔥
⚠️: anxiety

Oh my - I loved this book SO MUCH. I'm a fan of the entire Well Met series, but WELL MATCHED is my favorite. I don't think I stopped smiling the entire time except, perhaps, when I was choked up. Mitch and April were absolutely ADORABLE together and I had the best time watching them pretend to date while falling in love for real. April is incredibly relatable as a 40-year-old single mother who has kept to herself for close to two decades and finding herself wanting to get out there and belong somewhere but fearing it's too late. The sexual tension was done beautifully and the payoff was so worth it. I loved revisiting the characters from the earlier books, the scene at the Malone's BBQ, really all of it. WELL MATCHED was fun, heartwarming, and a true delight. (There was one scene where April asks her sister to help her with a certain makeover and I got such Grease vibes only without the ick factor of Sandy's makeover!)

Thank you to the publisher for the early copy via netgalley!

I am not usually one for the fake dating trope, but it was done so well in this one and was so much more believable. This was definitely the story April and Mitch deserved. Plus it did have one of my other favorite tropes, there's only one bed.

All the Well Met books have been so good so far and this one was no different. And I love that we get snippets of the characters from the previous books in each individual standalone.

The most lightly-plotted of the Well Met romance trilogy, Well Matched is April and Mitch's story.

April Parker is the older sister of Emily (the main character of the first book). She's a single mom to high school senior Caitlin with whom she was in a car accident a few years prior (the catalyst for Emily moving into town in the first book). She's become friends with Mitch Malone by way of her Renaissance Faire-volunteering sister since Mitch is a volunteer there. Every year he dons his famous (or is it infamous?) kilt and assumes a Scottish accent, participating in mock fight scenes for attendees of the Faire and making the crowds drool over his physique (perhaps book 3.5 in the series could be called Well Built? teehee).

April and Mitch have a bit of a connection prior to the events of this book (as evidenced by the end of book 2), but they both seem to be under the impression that the other person would never go for them.

April is around a decade older than Mitch and is done having kids. She also has serious walls built up around her heart since her daughter's father, her ex-husband, walked out on them before they even had a chance to be a family. She was kind of like Lorelai Gilmore coming to this small Maryland town when her daughter was little - April is beautiful, smart, funny, and with a daughter that the town loves, but she's infinitely more guarded than bubbly Lorelai. Meanwhile Mitch is the town stud and practically oozes confidence, but it turns out he's far less sure of himself than he seems.

So when Mitch proposes the idea to April that she pose as his girlfriend at a family function so that he'll seem stable and put-together, it seems like their romance could only ever be for show. But as time goes on and the two spend more time together, the line between fiction and reality becomes blurred.

I was primed to enjoy this one because of how much I loved the first two books in the series, but I have to admit this series got progressively weaker as it went along, plot-wise. This one's story was pretty hum-drum and I ended up reading about more home improvement projects than I ever needed to in a book.

But what Jen DeLuca does well (heh) in these books is character development. April and Mitch are two fully-realized people with complicated backstories and authentic reactions to things that remind them of past hurts. They are who they are, but they want to grow, and actually show growth. I loved them both so much, I was willing to read about the most boring, yet painful home improvement project on the planet: painting. (I painted my husband's office earlier this year and I'm still not over the trauma.)

If you've loved the series this far - if you love Mitch and April and want the satisfaction of seeing them get their happily ever after - you'll want to read this. To anyone new to this series, I'd say you're good sticking with the first book then moving on to greener pastures.

I can't even say how much I love this series. Every time another one comes out, it brings me so much joy. This one was now exception, and I enjoyed re-visiting the ren faire through it.

Readers of Jen DeLuca's two previous Ren Faire novels have been waiting to see how things turn out for Mitch Malone, the dreamboat buddy of both her previous heroines. As a big fan of those big-hearted stories, I was a little afraid going in, thinking, how's she going to pull off a happy ending that reads true here, but I shouldn't have worried. If DeLuca hadn't already been on my auto-buy list before this, she sure would be now. All that said, new readers of DeLuca's work will find it easy to get comfortable in her small town setting of Willow Creek, MD.

Woohoo, we finally get April & Mitch's book! I'm a sucker for a grump/sunshine trope, and especially when the heroine is the grump & the hero is the sunshine, and I think this was further enhanced by having the heroine being ~10 years older than the hero. This is a lot about April transitioning from one season of her life to another, and how her preconceptions about Mitch are colored more by her own hang ups than who he actually is. It also has some interesting conversation about kids in a HEA. Overall, this was a book that had a lot of flipping of tropes or character conflicts traditionally associated with the other gender, and I think that took the book to the next level for me.

This was a fun romcom for anyone who is looking for a fun and quick read. There are fan favourite tropes riddled into plot (fake dating, age gap) which made it entertaining.

This is book 3 out of Jen DeLuca’s “Well Met” series, and can be read as a stand-alone, however I would recommend the precious ones be read prior to this to really appreciate the characters and the world she has created.

Well Matched is the third book in Jen DeLuca's Renaissance Faire romance series and is a book that I have been excited to get my hands on since I finished book two last fall. I found Jen DeLuca through The Wicked Wallflowers Club podcast and the second I heard she had written a Ren Faire romance, I was in. I devoured Well Met (book one) and read Well Played (book two) the second it came out. I found them to be fun and sweet: a soothing balm to my unending stress during 2020. These books are light and fluffy while delivering on well-rounded characters, satisfying relationships, and steamy sex scenes.

Summary
April Parker is a single mom who is getting ready to send her daughter off to college. Facing having an empty nest and more time to herself, she'd getting ready to move away from the small town she'd settled in years earlier for her daughter's benefit. She finds herself agreeing to pretend to be her sort-of-friend, Mitch Malone's, girlfriend for a family gathering in exchange for him helping her ready her house to be put on the market, and the series of events that follows challenge everything she thought she knew about who she is and what she wants.

This book is full of delicious tropes that romance fans like myself adore: fake dating, only one bed, grumpy one/sunshine one, and age gap. These are all tropes that I personally love a lot so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this book as much as I did. April is about 10 years older than Mitch and is set in her grumpy and private ways. Mitch is a literal ray of sunshine who worships the ground she walks on. What's not to love?

Now I have to be honest, I don't think that this book is my favorite in the series. Well Met, the story between Emily (April's younger sister) and Simon, still holds the number one spot, but Well Matched was still a delight. I read it in about a day and I had a good time. Jen DeLuca's writing is straight forward and feels very real, especially since all these books are written in first person from the heroine's POV only. If you're looking for a light, feel good read, this book fits the bill, although I do recommend starting the series at the beginning. They work as standalone stories, I just think it's more fun to read them in order.

Well Matched by Jen DeLuca is the 3rd book in her Well Met series. This story continues to revolve around the town of Willow Creek, and the Renaissance Faire that comes every year. We have anxiously awaited Mitch and April’s story, and am happy to say I loved it.

April, our heroine, who just recovered from a bad accident, knows that her daughter Caitlyn will be leaving at the end of the summer for college. Even though she is close to her sister, Emily (previous book heroine), and her best friend Stacey (another previous book heroine), April is determined to fix up her house to sell it. April has over the years, kept herself guarded and closed, only allowing her sister, Simon and Stacey to spend time with.

Mitch, our hero, is a hot sexy hunk, who is also the towns gym teacher, as well as his participation in the annual Renaissance Faire, wearing only a kilt. He does have a reputation of being a ladies man, with many flings, as all the girls love him. April asks Mitch, who she considers simply a friend to help her with the renovations, and he in turn will ask April to pretend to be his fake girlfriend at the family dinner, since they always pick on him. I loved Mitch, as he was so great with April, and secretly has had a crush on her. April doesn’t think much about pretending to be his fake girlfriend, since she knows nothing real could happen between them, since he is 10 years younger than her. Best laid plans. 😊


It was fun to watch them both falling for each other, and they made a great couple, and I really liked them together, as they had great chemistry. What follows is a fun, sweet romance between Mitch and April, and we rooted hard for them to find a way to stay together; especially since April is still planning to sell her home, and move closer to her job, after Caitlyn leaves for college. Will April leave Mitch, Emily and Stacey?

I loved seeing the main characters from the earlier books, who played major parts in this one, as well as the fun of the faire, and residents of Willow Creek. Well Matched was a fun, enjoyable, sweet and sexy story, and an amazing couple in Mitch and April. Jen DeLuca did a wonderful job writing this wonderful romantic story that that had a lot of humor and charm. I suggest you read Well Matched, as it was a fun enjoyable read.