Title: Wear It Like a Crown
Author: Zarah Detand
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 412 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
At a Glance: Zarah Detand delivers a sweet and complex contemporary fairy tale in Wear It Like a Crown.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: As part of a team of fixers hired to handle a gay scandal in Buckingham Palace, Leo expects Prince Joshua to be a lot of things, most notably a royally spoilt brat. But when planning the Prince’s coming out throws them into close contact, a tentative friendship blooms. Leo has no intention of ruining it with the admission that Prince Joshua used to star in quite a number of his teenage fantasies.
Review: As modern-day fairy tales go, Zarah Detand’s Wear It Like a Crown is a lovely one, filled with extortion and secrets and lies of omission. Detand throws her fictional prince into a tailspin when he’s caught in a compromising position, bribed with photo evidence, and then forced to either come out or give in to the extortionist’s demands. Enter a team of fixers hired to track down the blackmailer—which they do quite handily thanks to virtual fingerprints—and guide Prince Joshua through the process of taking control of his narrative. One member of that team is Leo Graham, the man who will become instrumental in Joshua’s journey.
At its simplest, Wear It Like a Crown is an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story. There are reasons Leo feels little but scorn for Joshua. Familiarity breeds contempt comes into play in Leo’s assumption that there is nothing more to Joshua than a spoiled, privileged, arrogant, elitist, out of touch with the real world royal. It’s not long, however, before familiarity begins to breed something like affection, understanding and empathy, and that’s when the greater misery along with some heavy pining begins to take shape. Joshua’s life is anything but common, but that doesn’t mean he takes advantage of people or that he takes them for granted either. But there are very few people he’s allowed into his inner circle, and Leo gradually becomes one of them.
At its most complicated, Wear It Like a Crown is the story of a man who’s been taught, through no fault of his own, that family does not beget unconditional love or security. A lack of honest communication plays its role in the story as well, and Leo taking away Joshua’s right to decide what’s in his own best interest further complicates what has developed between them. Leo believes he has valid reasons for those decisions, though, even as he encourages Joshua to push through his fears and come out to the public, to embrace his truth and wear it as a point of pride and confidence, all while Leo fearfully guards his own secrets.
This isn’t an opposites attract romance, per se, but it most certainly is a paradox of life experiences story, and it charmed me while it struck a chord of empathy too. Detand builds the attraction and tension between Leo and Joshua to a boiling point, and it all eventually spills over in painful and heart-wrenching ways. The cast of characters surrounding Joshua and Leo—specifically Joshua’s best friends Tristan and Mo, and Leo’s best friend Nate—give great support to the story, and there’s even a sweet side-romance between a couple of them. And, of course, I loved Joshua and Leo together.
Another parallel storyline involves Leo and his work with at-risk youth, which was heartwarming and showed his gentler side with clarity. The one area I felt slowed down the narrative was a tour through Brazil that was detailed to the point of drawing attention away from the turning point in the romance, but overall, as a contemporary fairy tale, Zarah Detand delivers a sweet and complex one for her intrepid heroes.
You can buy Wear It Like a Crown here:
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