Well Met

3.5/5 stars 

Emily had to relocate to Willow Creek after her older sister became temporarily immobile in a car accident. Emily gets roped into participating in the Renaissance Faire for the summer by her niece Caitlin. While Emily is unsure at first, she soon finds out that the Faire is actually a lot of fun and she could make some solid friendships there. With everyone except for Simon… When in character, Emily and Simon seem like they could be a perfect couple, but real life shows her something different. Emily has the summer to figure it out and decide if Willow Creek is somewhere could see herself living forever. 

I was a bit unsure of this book at first and thought it would be pretty cheesy. I was pleasantly surprised by how Deluca wrote a cute romance with a small-town Renaissance Faire as the backdrop. I had almost zero background knowledge on Renaissance Faires before, but immediately felt like I was part of the Faire family because the characters were so friendly and welcoming. 

I did appreciate the budding romance between Simon and Emily. Deluca did a good job at building the tension, especially by having their interactions be polar opposite when in and out of character. I did get a bit frustrated with Emily. She seemed very self-aware of her tendency to overthink and her fear of rejection. Despite this awareness, she questioned everyone’s motivations all of the time instead of just asking people what their motivations were. 

Lastly, the pacing of the plot felt a bit off. It took a while for the romance between Emily and Simon to even begin and once they made their feelings known, the 1/3 of the book that remained was mostly fluff with a little bit of drama (that again, could have been avoided if Emily didn’t assume people’s motivations). Overall, this was a feel-good romance that was a good choice to end my summer, but my frustrations with the protagonist knocked it down a few stars.