Title: Well Played (Well Met #2)

Author: Jen DeLuca

Publisher: Berkley 2020

Genre: Romance

Pages: 332

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

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.

Oof a disappointment for me. I really did enjoy the first book in the series focusing on Simon and Emily. It was a fun rom-com romp. I was looking forward to the next installment, but this one really fell flat with me. I couldn’t find myself connecting with Stacey as a main character. She seemed like a flighty, shallow person constantly whining about her inability to get out of her hometown. And then we move onto the romance portion. The catfishing plot was just so incredibly predictable and yet the book just breezed past it once it was revealed. I couldn’t believe that Stacey didn’t spend any real time dealing with the deception. Finally we get to actual romance and I just wasn’t that interested in Stacey and Daniel as a couple. Blergh. I’m hoping the third book focused on Mitch and April is better.

Well Met

• #1 Well Met

• #2 Well Played

• #3 Well Matched

Next up on the TBR pile: