4.5 stars

April Parker is about to become an empty nester and she's ready to leave Willow Creek behind. Mitch Malone, our favorite kilt-wearing PE teacher, is sick of being pestered by his family for being single. Obviously the best option is for April to go home with him and pretend to be his girlfriend. But is there more to Mitch than meets the eye?

Y'all, the Faire is back and has completely redeemed itself. This one is everything I wanted and more. I had no idea how much I would love April. And then there's Mitch, ohh Mitch. He's made of muscle but even more heart. Basically, he's perfect and I always knew he would be.

The relationship between April and Caitlin is just what I wanted. Single mom and newly adult daughter, Gilmore Girls anyone? I loved seeing April work through her daughter growing up and leaving and what that means for her life moving forward.

In case you needed more reasons to read this book: it has the BEST tropes. Fake dating, one bed, older woman. It's all there. Plus I love their chemistry and how they both learn that they are good enough. Of course there's some steam too.

This book doesn't have as much faire content as the previous ones but I thought it was just the right amount. So, if you're ready to jump back into your favorite small town, get some much needed Emily and Simon content, and fall more in love with Mitch Malone, don't wait any longer!

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Berkley Romance has been killing it lately with the love game, and Well Matched is no exception. I loved the first two books in the series, so it will come as no surprise that I loved this one too. We first met April and her daughter, Caitlin, in book one, when she was in an accident that damaged her knee and her sister, Emily, came to Willow Creek to help out. Now, in Well Matched, April gets her own story. We learn a lot about the Renaissance Faire in books one and two, so I liked that this one didn't focus too much on that, although it was still a part of the story. April and Mitch are the two main characters in this story, and I loved them both so much. I loved the reverse age gap romance, with April being about 10 years older than Mitch. I also usually enjoy the fake dating trope, and I liked it in this book. I liked that April stood up to Mitch's family; most of his family was really unlikable, especially his male cousin. I liked that Mitch helped April out around her house and was able to come to her rescue when Caitlin's long lost uninvolved father came to her graduation. Their chemistry was undeniable from the beginning, and I enjoyed watching their friendship and romance bloom throughout the story. The steam came in at the perfect time; not too soon and not too late, and I binge read this book in one sitting. I am also already looking forward to Lulu's story in the next book.

I enjoyed this book! The relationship developed was endearing and I loved their interactions. I do wish we’d gotten more of Mitch - it seemed like more of April’s story.

The third book in the Well Met series brings us a fake dating trope as well as an age difference romance. While it was as charming and small town as the two previous books and had a great leading man, April’s curmudgeony personality just isn’t my cup of tea and the whole straight laced woman falls for sexy goofball really isn’t my favorite, so while enjoyable and very readable, it’s probably my least favorite in the series. There wasn’t a ton of depth in Mitch either and if I wasn’t familiar with the series, I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed it as a stand-alone.

Still looking forward to the continuation of the series with I’m assuming Mitch’s cousin Lulu as the protagonist.

Omg!! I thought I loved all the other books in this series too much, but this one just blew them out of the water!! This is by far my favorite from this series!! I honestly thought I wasn’t going to like this one since Mitch seemed to be a bit of a player in the other books, but BOY OH BOY MITCH MALONE!! You sir are my favorite 😍 loved everything about this book!! No complaints here!! Steam level was fantastic and I love a good fake dating trope!! All the stars for this one!!

I really enjoyed Well Met, skipped Well Played, and honestly had pretty low expectations of Well Matched. But the premise of an older single mom falling for the cute HS teacher actually worked really well!

I thought the writing was engaging, and I found myself smiling every time Mitch and April shared a moment together. I appreciated April's journey to discovering what comes after her daughter goes to college. After putting someone else first in her life for so long, as readers we got to see her challenge to choose something for herself.
And Mitch was her perfect match; not in a cheesy way, but in a way that felt realistic yet hopeful.

I will definitely read whatever Jen DeLuca comes up with next! Recommend for fans of Well Met and Life's Too Short.

April is getting ready to become an empty nester and she has big plans of renovating her home to put it on the market. Mitch offers to help in exchange for April pretending to be his girlfriend for a family reunion. 🥑🖌️💜

I absolutely love this series. This book was really cute. April drove me crazy as a character, and there weren't quite as many scenes at the Renn Faire, but I still really enjoyed this book! I highly recommend the entire series! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Well Matched is my favorite among Jen DeLuca’s three volume series about renaissance fair attending nerds falling in love in Willow Creek. A single mom, a kilted dude, and some intense passion brings to life an enchanting romance that stands as one of DeLuca’s best thus far.

April Parker is a single mother who’s looking to renovate her house and sell it now that her daughter Caitlin is heading off to college. Having not thought of herself in a long time, putting herself first is a new experience for April an and she’s ready to branch out and breathe.  But she hasn’t been in a serious relationship for twelve years due to her introversion and social anxiety – and with her ex coming back into the picture to reconnect with Caitlin, that anxiety just keeps on ramping up.  And Caitlin’s not happy about April selling the house.

Gym teacher Mitch Malone is a sunshiny, confident himbo who has been April’s best friend for ages. April and Mitch have been flirting with one another for decades, but nothing has come of it.  But now that April needs help with her house, Mitch happily agrees to do the renovation work  – if she’ll agree to pose as his fiancée during his grandparent’s anniversary weekend.  His family keeps pressuring him to settle down and get a white collar job, and having April along will at least stop them nagging him about the first thing.  April feels a new connection with Mitch as they pretend to date, so when the Malones show up during the Renaissance Faire, where she’s volunteering and Mitch is once again working, she poses as his fiancée again.  Will they find real love?

It is my solemn duty to inform you I’d die for Mitch Malone.  Well Matched is made delightful by his existence, and poor sweet April, with her bubbling social anxiety, is a delightful counterpart to his confidence.  They make a really delightful couple and it’s so much fun to watch them get blindsided by true love.

Everyone grows a little.  Many folks will see themselves in workaday April, who finally develops a little boldness in her approach to life. And Mitch – God, I loved Mitch. He’s so much fun and so good for and to April.  Also, hooray for older heroines – April is nine years Mitch’s senior.

As always, De Luca’s family characters shine through.  Caitlin is wholly believable as an adolescent standing on the cusp of adulthood, and it’s fun visiting Mitch’s family.  We also get to catch up with all the couples who were so merrily matched in previous volumes of the series(April is a best friend to the heroine in book #1 and Mitch is basically friends with everyone and was the mistaken-boyfriend of the heroine in book #2 – and I liked Mitch much better here than I did there). Those who wanted more Ren Faire action will be heartily disappointed, but that’s the only flaw I can really think of.

Well Matched is an excellent novel, and a wonderful romance.  Fan of the series will likely love to see it conclude with Mich’s well-earned HEA.

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I know I’m not the only one that had been eagerly awaiting Mitch and April’s stories, but I must say I didn’t know how’d I’d feel about them together. Well Matched indeed! I absolutely loved them!
Mitch was the comic relief and the aromatic foil in some of the previous books, but he always stood out. He is just so charismatic, you can’t help but like him. Especially that whole Jamie Fraser thing he has going on during the fair. But quite honestly, he isn’t known for much more than a good time. April seemed his complete opposite the responsible one, who wasn’t really any fun. In Well Played I didn’t really like her much at first.
Well, let me tell you opposites attract. There was some serious chemistry between these two. I also like that we got to see different sides to these characters. We see Mitch is more than we thought and April actually does know how to let her guard down, at least a little. I really loved how April stood up for Mitch.
While I would have liked it a little more at the end, I really enjoyed this book, and especially Mitch and April!

Single-mom April finally gets her romance in this third installation of the Well Met series by Jen DeLuca. Her "relationship" with local gym teacher Mitch starts off as a quid-pro-quo of pretending to be his girlfriend for his family thing in exchange for him helping her with some remodel projects on her house. Quickly, though, the two find out that the sparks are very real. But loner April must learn how to accept help and love after her husband left her 20 years previously. Can she melt the ice around her heart to accept Mitch's care?

Well Matched is a lot of fun, but it's sooo weird to not have the partner's POV in addition to the protagonist's POV. I also disliked how little April trusts her 17-year-old daughter and how much she treats Caitlin like a child. I get that it's been just the two of them for a long time, but let's please model healthy mother-daughter relationships!

Another terrific romance set in the world of Well Met! Featuring a couple with great chemistry, a fresh take on the fake dating trope, and some delicious Ren Faire action, this is a highly enjoyable, sweet book that shouldn't be missed!

I absolutely love the idea of going to a Renaissance Faire! I have had the lovely experiences of going to Medieval Tournaments in big city places while traveling, but still have not attended a Renaissance Faire. (It is on my list!) I have heard that the Renaissance Faire is featured in this series set in Willow Creek, and it caught my interest. Well Matched by Jen DeLuca is part of a series - book 3 of 4, I believe. I read it as a stand alone, though I think it would be nice to go back and explore the characters' and their stories in the first two books to catch up.

Well Matched has quite a few troupes that I like fake dating is my favorite, but there is also the age gap between April and Mitch. Super fun and spicy romantic comedy! What did I enjoy the most> The character growth - which is adorable, even with a few misunderstandings. April's character is one that was easy for me to relate to- approaching empty nest and planning to move away. Sometimes life has a fun way to redirect our plans, but will April listen to her heart or her head? Definitely an enjoyable read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Jen DeLuca, and Berkley Publishing for this fun, temporary advance review copy for me to read and enjoy! As always, my reviews are voluntary and my opinions are my own.

After absolutely loving Well Met and then just sorta liking Well Played I definitely had mixed feelings going into this one. I’m so so happy to say that I really enjoyed this one and am also thrilled that it looks like a fourth book is in the works?!

This had two of my favorite tropes; fake dating and a reverse age gap so I was a happy little camper after reading just the synopsis. I’ve been so interested in both April and Mitch since book one, especially him I mean his kilt scenes stole the show for me 🥵 so getting to know more about them both was so fun. These two surprised me with their genuine support of each other almost from the start, they had each other’s backs and it was adorable. Their chemistry was believable and their story was both sweet and sexy, definitely a great addition to the series. Bring on book four!!

Finally, we got Mitch’s book. I have been waiting for this ever since I first picked up well-met. I am absolutely obsessed with this golden retriever man. This is probably my second favorite in the series after the first one even though this one comes pretty close to beating that one.

This book follows April, Emily’s from the first book sister, and Mitch, Simon’s best friend. Mitch decides to bring April to a family party to impress his family. While I love a fake dating plot, the fake dating in this book is actually only a small part of it as most of the book happens after. A lot of the book is about how April, whose daughter is about to leave for college, is planning on moving out of town after her daughter moves out.
This book is reverse grumpy/sunshine at its finest. Mitch is the happy go lucky playboy and April is the pessimistic single mom. I loved seeing their relationship grow and see how they both change to grow with each other. One of my only complaints is that I wish we got more time to see them as a happy couple because they do spend a good part of the time bickering or arguing about the fact that April is leaving soon.
We don’t see Stacy or Daniel much in this book but we do get a good amount of Simon and Emily which I will always appreciate. I also love that, even though April hadn’t been involved with the Renaissance fair before, this book introduces her to it and we do get to see some scenes from the fair which is always my favorite part of these books.
Overall, this was a fun lighthearted comfort read. Jen DeLuca is an instant buy author for me now.

Seriously what isn't to love about this book, about this series? I really loved getting inside April's head in this one, seeing what's behind her tough exterior for more or less the first time. Of course, we get snippets of the real April, the April underneath all the walls, in Well Met and Well Played, but not like this. I also never quite realized until now how sparse truly introverted main characters are, and I appreciated seeing that here. April's thought process and decisions didn't just make sense from like a logical, outsider's perspective understanding a character, they made sense in an obvious, familiar way. And that was a nice change of pace from the usual rom-com lead. And emphasis on the comedy, because this book made me laugh more times than I would expect from a book that also made me cry on more than occasion. I loved going back to the Faire too, that will never get old and I'm thrilled there's going to be a fourth book in this series so I don't have to give it up quite yet. Nor Mitch, because there can never be enough Mitch.

I was not prepared to be such a huge fan of not one, but THREE Renaissance Faire rom coms. Honestly, it was never on my list of tropes to read. But, word of mouth drew me into this series, and I COULD NOT WAIT to read Well Matched.


Things I LOVED about this story- pretty much all of it. Fake relationships rank super high on the trope favorite list for me. I suspected from the other two books that Mitch, the H, was more than meets the eye, so swoon-worthy. The flirtation and the chemistry between the two was excellent. I also love getting to see the entire crew as the Faire is sprinkled in. I will say I struggled with the relationship between April, the h, and her daughter but I have a son, so what do I know ;)


Overall, I think this book, and this series, are for sure a must-read for lovers of low angst, humor, and light steam.

This was overall a sweet story, but I didn't feel the chemistry between the two main characters, and I found parts of it flat. Didn't love it as much as the first in this series, which is one of my favorite romances.

Jen Deluca has never let me down, and she didn't this time either!

I have absolutely been loving every book in this series, but I think that there is something to be said for having 2 characters that have both shown up in the previous books. It did not take me long to fall in love with them and with this story.

I truly read this in one day. I could not put it down!

Every character feels so real, and I know I will have to reread this so that I can experience it all again soon!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a solid addition to the "Well Met" series. Though I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first two books, it was still a quick and fun read. The Renaissance Faire definitely takes a back seat in this book, which I think was at least partially why I didn't enjoy it as much. For me, that is what made this series more unique.

Mitch and April's story is my 2nd favorite of the series. The book is a perfect blend of humor, heart and a touch of spice.