The Wilde Trials

At Wilde Academy, an elite New Hampshire boarding school, 12 graduating seniors have the opportunity to compete in the grueling Wilde Academy Wilderness Competition, or the Wilde Trials. Eighteen-year-old Chloe Gatti, the school’s only scholarship student, intends to win the competition and use the $600,000 cash prize to pay for her younger sister’s cancer treatments. Though Chloe expects hostility from her rich and ambitious peers, she is shocked when she’s targeted by increasingly threatening blackmail and sabotage attempts. Further complicating matters, one of Chloe’s rivals is her ex-boyfriend Hayes Stratford. As she scrambles to discover her blackmailer’s identity, Chloe is forced into an uneasy alliance with Hayes, who entered the competition to uncover the secrets surrounding his brother’s mysterious death during a past trial. Sparks fly as the duo’s previously smothered attraction roars to life amid a tangled web of hidden motivations, shocking betrayals, and unchecked ambition. Via Chloe’s lively first-person POV, Reed spins a fun, action-packed mystery wrapped in riddles and scavenger hunts, while lightly touching on themes of class privilege and academic pressure. Chloe is described as having “olive-toned skin”; Hayes cues as white. Ages 13–up. Agent: Amy Bishop-Wycisk, Trellis Literary. (Jan.)