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Well Met

"Her house wasn't my home.  This town wasn't my home.  Yet when I looked at the coffee cup again, that warm sense of belonging lingered.  I wanted to hold on to that feeling.  But I didn't trust it, either."

When Emily's sister, April, was injured in a car accident and needed help she didn't hesitate to pack up and move to the small town of Willow Creek. Why wouldn't she?  As a newly dumped college dropout things weren't exactly booming.  And she'd get to do lots of fun things with her teenage niece, Cait.  Things like volunteer to spend the entire summer working at the local Renaissance Fair.

Well Met, by Jen DeLuca, is an adorable little romantic comedy about a twenty-five year old woman that moves in to help her sister and niece.  She volunteers at the small town's large Renaissance Fair where, of course, girl meets boy.  Girl despises boy.  Girl makes out with boy in a bar wench costume and falls madly in love.  It was wonderful.

Emily is a funny character.  "Fuck.  Simon had joined us, and I was standing there holding my breasts in my hands like some kind of pervert."  Direct and a bit rash, but underneath that she's full of insecurities and not quite sure what to do with herself.  And, most importantly, she just wants to belong.  She signs up for Fair to help out her niece, but she stays because she wants to be close to the people of Willow Creek.  Close to everyone except Simon, who she immediately thinks is a jerk.  But Simon is hiding his own insecurities and eventually the two can't help but be attracted to each other.

For whatever reason, I'm coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic as a lover of RomComs.  Until last month I never read them.  Never even glanced their direction.  I went straight to SciFi and Fantasy.  However, the current state of the world has left me yearning for predictable stories where the characters have witty banter and fall in love and live happily ever after.  The real world rarely works that way, so it's nice to get lost in a fictional one that does for a while.  I feel sad that I passed over RomComs for so long.  I feel ashamed that I was a bit of a snob when it came to them.  A little bit of love and laughter in my world is good for my soul.
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