Well Played (Well Met #2)

2.5 stars* I have been really excited to read Well Played, the sequel to Jen DeLuca’s delightful debut novel Well Met because I really, really enjoyed the first book. I’m sad to say however that this book did not meet my expectations of it. We met the heroine, Stacey, in the first book as Emily’s friend and co-wench “Beatrice” in the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire. On the surface, Stacey is sweet, bubbly and loves to have a good time but she keeps a part of herself hidden from her friends and family. Even though she has a stable job and great friends and family, Stacey feels extremely unfulfilled in her life. She gave up a promising career in fashion merchandising to move back home and take care of her mom when she fell ill and has been in a slump ever since. One night, after feeling very sorry for herself, she drunkenly messages her ex-hookup, Dex MacLean. Mortified and also pleasantly surprised, she finds that he messages her back and they embark on a lengthy exchange of emails and texts, slowly falling in love with each other. Everything is going perfectly until Stacey discovers that the man she has been falling in love with is not actually Dex, but his cousin, Daniel. I enjoyed the first part of the book. The writing is pretty solid and I was hooked on the long distance romance that was developing between the H/h. The emails did a great job of building the characters of Stacey and Daniel because it felt like I was learning about both of them as they did as well. Where it fell apart for me was when we discover that Daniel has been catfishing Stacey by pretending to be his cousin Dex. Daniel has liked Stacey for a long time but never had the guts to ask her out himself. When Stacey reaches out to Dex, he assumes his identity and starts to correspond with her. This really made me angry. I felt that his explanation of his actions was lackluster at best and his behaviour quite disgusting considering the fact that Stacey shared so much of her life with him. Once we met Daniel in person, their chemistry seriously tanked for me. Maybe it’s because I’m not really partial to beta heroes and Daniel is beta to the T,but I just couldn’t get over how quickly Stacey forgave him and how he lied to her AGAIN after promising her that he had nothing else to hide. And she forgives him, AGAIN. In fact, she goes after HIM to reconcile their relationship because Daniel can’t do anything other than run when he’s caught in a lie or forced to face a little bit of emotional hardship. Stacey’s repeated forgiveness of Daniel’s cowardice and betrayal just made her look super desperate to me at the end. I personally would have preferred it if she had kicked his ass to the curb and had focused on reviving her career because that whole bit of plot was conveniently forgotten and supposedly solved by Stacey deciding to go travel with Daniel. As if traveling to various renaissance faires with the Dueling Kilts somehow fulfils Stacey professionally? Even though Daniel has complained about the vagabond lifestyle and wanting to have roots multiple times during their correspondence? Overall, I was not very satisfied with this book but Jen DeLuca is a good writer and that along with numerous cameos from the characters from the previous book is perhaps what kept me committed to finishing it.