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Chloe Gatti will do whatever it takes to win her elite boarding school’s annual competition, the Wilde Trials. In the two weeks leading up to graduation from Wilde Academy, a dozen seniors are chosen to compete in a series of seven ultimate physical and mental tests, and the winner will take home over half a million dollars—money that Chloe needs to help her sick sister.

But the competition is fierce and includes her brooding ex-boyfriend, Hayes Stratford, whose brother was the only student to die during the trials a few years ago. When someone starts blackmailing Chloe during the competition, she’s forced to strike a deal with Hayes—if he helps her discover who is sabotaging her, she’ll help him solve the mystery his brother left behind.

Following clues from Hayes’s brother, the unlikely allies discover that something isn’t right about the Wilde Trials. With a life-changing prize looming over her head and her buried feelings for Hayes rising to the surface, Chloe will have to decide what’s really worth fighting for, and if the cost of competing outweighs the potential consequences, even if that includes ending up like Hayes’s brother—dead.

Short and Sweet Review

At Chloe’s fancy boarding school there’s a competition where 12 seniors are chosen to compete in seven trials for the chance to win half a million dollars. Chloe’s main motivation for entering is to help pay for her sister’s medical bills. Chloe has a lot of competition including her ex boyfriend Hayes. When Chloe begins to get blackmailed she decides to team up with Hayes, he helps find out who has it out for her and she’ll help him figure out how his brother died at the last Wilde trial.

First, let me just say that this may be Reed’s second book but she’s great at writing book where our characters have to find clues and solve puzzles to see where they lead. Chloe is our main character and she’s smart but her classmates don’t think so considering she was behind when she came to Wilde Academy, which is how she meet Hayes when he became her tutor. I will say one downfall about Chloe is when things are very obvious she tends to be dense. After their breakup things between their friend group got awkward which we see throughout the book. Anyway the 12 competitors are taken to an estate where they stay for the trials. After each trial competitors are eliminated and Chloe’s blackmailer is out to get her. We don’t really know which one of her classmates it could be because they all seem to have a reason not to like her. I also like that there’s two mysteries, finding out who’s messing with Chloe and finding out how Hunter died. There was a lot of sneaking around to figure out what happened to Hunter but I liked going through all of the clues he left behind. Finding Chloe’s saboteur should have been easy because competitors were being eliminated but the person out to get Chloe worked hard to stay inconspicuous. Seeing Chloe and Hayes rekindle was nice especially because they still had feelings for each other and through the course of the book you can tell they shouldn’t have split up in the first place. The ending was good and I like how everything made sense and there weren’t any questions left.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The Wilde Trials is fun and has a competitive atmosphere to it and all of the twists and turns will keep you on the edge of your seat!