~ Audiobook Review: Well Traveled (Well Met #4) ~

Author: Jen DeLuca

Narrator: Brittany Pressley

A high-powered attorney from a success-oriented family, Louisa “Lulu” Malone lives to work, and everything seems to be going right, until the day she realizes it’s all wrong. Lulu’s cousin Mitch introduced her to the world of Renaissance Faires, and when she spies one at a time just when she needs an escape, she leaps into the welcoming environment of turkey legs, taverns, and tarot readers. The only drawback? Dex MacLean: a guitarist with a killer smile, the Casanova of the Faire… and her traveling companion for the summer.

Dex has never had to work for much in his life, and why should he? Touring with his brothers as The Dueling Kilts is going great, and he always finds a woman at every Faire. But when Lulu proves indifferent to his many plaid charms and a shake-up threatens the fate of the band, Dex must confront something he never has before: his future.

Forced to spend days and nights together on the road, Lulu’s interest in the kilted bad boy grows as he shows her a side of himself no one else has seen. The stresses of her old lifestyle fade away as she learns to trust her intuition and follow her heart instead of her head. But when her time on the road is over, will Lulu go with her gut, or are she and Dex destined for separate paths?

The Renaissance Faire is on the move, and Lulu and Dex are along for the ride, in the next utterly charming rom-com from Jen DeLuca.

Well Traveled is the fourth novel in the Well Met series. While this is a series, each novel could be read as a standalone. This series has been a lot of highs and lows and while many readers prefer the first novel, I ended up preferring the third. This novel, while marketed as a romance, leans a lot more towards women’s fiction. The romance does not start really until over halfway into the story, so if I were reading this again for the first time, I would have adjusted my expectations. There is still romance, but not enough for me to consider it an actual romance story. I love the Ren Faire aspect of the series as it is something unique where there are tons around the world, but not usually included in fiction.

This story follows Louisa “Lulu” Malone, an attorney, who is Mitch’s cousin (first novel). After attending a ren faire, she decides to make a change in her life and become part of the crew. She eventually meets Declan “Dex” MacLean, who has been featured in previous novels and the two eventually begin a romantic connection. While Dex has been featured previously, I think there is still a lot that the reader does not know about him. As for Lulu, she focuses on trying to adjust to faire life where she tries out the tavern and eventually the tarot booth. There are a lot of details about the elements of the faire, which I did enjoy as I have been to these faires before, but I never worked in one to see the tinier pieces.

As a romance novel, I felt the story needed more work as I just did not connect enough with the couple. As for a women’s fiction novel, I could empathize with Lulu. Her parents had certain expectations for her and now she is lost trying to figure out everything for her future. She does go through a journey, but she did not go through as much growth as I expected. All the pieces of the story did have a lot of potential, but I felt the writing held back for some reason. I felt this a little bit with the other novels in the series, so it seems that this is a choice by the author to keep the stories lighter. Since a lot of novels in the series have been hit or miss, I may not immediately pick up the next novel by the author, but I think I will, at least, place it on my TBR.