Stacey has spent the last two years of the Renaissance Fair playing a buxom barmaid by day and hooking up with hot guy and musician Dex by night. When the month long fair ended her two good friends got engaged and Stacey felt dissatisfied with how she was living her life. So, one night after too many drinks she reaches out to Dex on his fan site and opens up about her feelings. Surprisingly he emails back and they spend the next 10 months becoming best friends and falling in love. There was a lot more to her hot hook-up than she thought! Or was there? She’s been played!

I couldn’t help but compare Well Played to Well Met, the first novel in this series. I may be doing this book a disservice because I LOVED Well Met. The setting surprised me and I loved the banter between Emily and Simon. There was a lot to like about Well Played but it just didn’t live up to my expectations.

Here’s what I liked. Stacey was a plus-sized heroine, which let’s face it, most of us are and so we can easily identify with her body self image insecurities. I loved that we still had that Renaissance Fair setting. I actually do wish that more of it had been set at the fair though. I did also like the friendships in this novel. They were all there for each other and had each others backs. If you have a great pack of friends you can survive most everything!

Here’s what weighed against my rating. (I can’t say dislike!) It took too long to get to our hero and heroine being together. There was a LOT of email exchanges and texts and I just didn’t feel all of the emotions I was supposed to feel. I liked our hero, but I didn’t love him. There was one scene that just really bothered me! I can’t get into who he is or what that scene was, so this is kind of lame to even mention but that scene set him up as being weak. I just couldn’t look at him the same after it. Now that I’m putting it on paper, that was really the main issue for me.

So, I liked Well Played, but I was disappointed at the same time. Maybe this is a case of building the book up too much in my head before actually reading it. I don’t know, but my rating reflects my feelings.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest.

Click this link to purchase!* Well Played

Copyright 2020 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.