Overdue Book Review--Well Traveled

I've eagerly devoured each of Jen DeLuca's RenFaire RomComs pretty much as soon as they came out. As a Rennie myself (vending my own books on the New England summer circuit) I absolutely love her setting and how well drawn the Faires and the people who work them are. I know she draws on her own experience as a Tavern Wench, and she's spot on. But there's much more than that.

Ms. DeLuca paints an amazingly vivid pictures of her characters, and writes with such heart, that it’s impossible not to love the people who inhabit her world.

The story is seamless, picking up the tale (as she does so well) of a minor player from a previous tale. In this case, the protagonist and narrator is Louisa (Lulu) Malone, a hard-nosed litigator for a top-tier law firm, who from one moment to the next suddenly realizes the glass ceiling is never going to crack, and finds herself unemployed and adrift. In steps her cousin Mitch, a non-success in the Malone family eyes, who charts his own course and who nevertheless is Lulu’s rock. Mitch offers Lulu a chance to reinvent herself by running away with the RenFaire for the summer. As Lulu grabs this lifeline, she does indeed find over the summer herself and, of course, love. The only burning question is, will she be able to hold on to either?

Of course, this being a RomCom, I know a HEA is on the way. But like her other tales, Well Traveled is not as much about the (deliciously intricate) plot and the getting to that HEA as it is about the characters and the feels. And darn it, Ms. DeLuca hits me right in the feels every time, to the point where my wife asks why I’m snuffling away reading this book, and I have to confess that I’m crying over the how-it-all-works-out scene *again*. Tears of joy coupled with hiccups of laughter, which makes for a really messy read, but one I wouldn’t miss for the world. Thank you for luring me back into your world of RenFaires and hopeless romantics, Jen Deluca. You got me again, and if there are more, I’ll gladly cry my way through them…

Recommended for

• anyone who has even been to (or wishes they had) a Renaissance Faire

• anyone who loves great heart-filled story telling

• anyone who wants to get lost in The Feels

And now I have to go back and start from the first book again, because they're all just that good!