Wear Wolf by Zoe Chant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wear Wolf is either book six or book nine, depending on whose word you take for the intended order. At least the title pun makes sense this time.
Zane left home the minute he graduated from high school, needing to get away from his toxic father and small-town life. Now he’s a fashion designer to the stars, happily ensconced in Los Angeles. He sponsors a charity contest to give away a custom-designed dress and is greatly surprised when the winner is in his hometown of Virtue, New York. He figures the winner must be someone he went to school with, and he’s dead set against going back to Virtue to meet the person.
Victoria came to Virtue as a long-term substitute teacher. Every year, she signs a contract with a different school district, traveling from state to state to see where she might want to settle down. Once in Virtue, she entered a contest at the behest of her elementary school students1particularly Noah, who we met in Timber Wolf and is even more surprised than Zane when she wins.
Zane resists going back to Virtue, arguing that it shouldn’t be a problem to sweep the winner off to Los Angeles and treat her like a queen. His long-suffering personal assistant, Dion, strong-arms him into going to the winner’s hometown as the contest was advertised. It’s a good thing, too, because Zane knows as soon as he sees Victoria that (of course) she’s his fated mate. There’s only one big problem: Zane suffers from face blindness (prosopagnosia), so he can’t recognize Victoria. Dion and other parties whisked Zane and Victoria apart to speak to the press at the award ceremony, and Victoria was gone by the time Zane got free of the reporters.
This couple has at least two difficulties to overcome: their geographic incompatibility and prosopagnosia. I gave this one five stars, as the two seem more believable (despite his fairy-tale career) than most of the other characters. This volume helped me to finish the series.
