Gifted & Talented

by Olivie Blake Narrated by Eunice Wong

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

We doubt fights with your siblings are ever this deadly — like Game of Thrones with a corporate edge, Gifted & Talented will have you rooting for your favorite heir to win it all.

“Eunice Wong's narration is clear, well paced, and emotionally balanced...This is a thoughtful, slow-burning novel with a narration that complements the complexity of the plot.” - AudioFile

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there's a will, there's a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father's approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father's company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth-by confirming she'd been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins-but which Wren will come out on top?

Also by Olivie Blake
The Atlas Six
The Atlas Paradox
The Atlas Complex
Alone with You in the Ether
One for My Enemy
Masters of Death
Januaries: Stories of Love, Magic & Betrayal

As Alexene Farol Follmuth
Twelfth Knight

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Told with Blake’s signature wit and driven by a cast of morally gray characters you will hate to love and love to hate, Gifted & Talented is equal parts black comedy, sharp indictment of privilege and power, and soaring, vicious drama. Addictively entertaining, this is Blake at the height of her abilities.”—Ava Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lady Macbeth

"Incisive, unsparing, and utterly brilliant. Gifted & Talented is a remarkable character study meditating on the consequences of dynasty and power. Olivie Blake’s storytelling has risen to empyrean heights." —Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of Immortal Longings

"Take the love-to-hate-'em siblings of Succession, add a dash of The Magicians' real-world magic, and put it together with Olivie Blake's stellar sense of humor, and you have Gifted & Talented, a refreshing tale of spoiled-sibling woe, mysterious curses, and family complexity that will absolutely delight you."—Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of When Among Crows

"Olivie Blake's singular narrative voice sparkles in Gifted & Talented—a timely tale of greed, ambition, and rivalry which eviscerates the world of wealth and privilege in nimble and terrific style."—M. L. Rio, bestselling author of If We Were Villians

"Gifted & Talented is a wickedly funny book about perfectly horrible people—and some of them even get what they deserve. Blake's sly prose and vivid character work bring the dreadful siblings to life, but also give us moments of heart-clenching tenderness. A delight."—Emily Tesh, Hugo Award-winning author of Some Desperate Glory

“Succession gets the dark fantasy treatment in this riveting standalone from bestseller Blake… It’s just the kind of deliciously toxic interpersonal miasma that Blake’s fans have come to expect.”—Publishers Weekly

PRAISE FOR THE ATLAS TRILOGY

“The Atlas Six introduces six of the most devious, talented, and flawed characters to ever find themselves in a magical library, and then sets them against one another in a series of stunning betrayals and reversals. As much a delicious contest of wit, will, and passion as it is of magic, this book is half mystery, half puzzle, and wholly a delight."—Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Night

"If you’re looking for a book you will want to talk about for a long time (and have plenty of people to talk to about), The Atlas Six is it."—Buzzfeed

“Lethally smart. Filled with a cast of brilliantly realized characters, each entangled with one another in torturously delicious ways, The Atlas Six will grip you by the throat and refuse to let go. Olivie Blake is a mind-blowing talent.”—Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights

"This dark academia masterpiece will have you gripping the edge of your seat as you turn page by page."—Isaac Fitzgerald on The Today Show

“Compelling, entertaining, and addictive. The Atlas Six is academic Darwinism: survival of the smartest with a healthy dose of magic.”—T.L. Huchu, author of The Library of The Dead

“This chilling story of ambition and magic will make you question your own morals as you grow to love (and hate) its fascinating, ruthless cast of characters. I utterly devoured this book.”—Amanda Foody, New York Times bestselling author of All of Us Villains

Kirkus Reviews

2025-04-19
Magic can’t solve the problems of this incredibly dysfunctional family.

As teenagers, Meredith, Arthur, and Eilidh Wren seemed poised for glorious futures. Now as the three approach 30, that promise seems to have gone a bit sour. A former lover is about to publish an article exposing prickly tech mogul Meredith as a fraud: She used magic to fake positive test results for a splashy new device which purportedly adjusts your brain chemistry to make you happy. Arthur, the country’s youngest congressman, watches his political fortunes tank while he juggles a complex love life that includes a devoted but apparently asexual wife as well as active participation in a pleasure-seeking throuple with a British aristocrat and a French race car driver. And lonely Eilidh mourns the glittering ballet career she lost five years ago to a car accident that injured her back, secretly pines for her father’s executive assistant, Dzhuliya, and worries about a secret ability that mimics the ten plagues. The three estranged siblings are forced to reckon with their past—and their future—when their domineering father, founder of the powerful corporation Wrenfare Magitech, suddenly dies. Blake has previously specialized in writing about brilliant, unpleasantly self-involved people; in this book, her apparently semiomniscient narrator actually comes straight out and tells you that all the Wrens are assholes. When the narrator’s identity is revealed (not that it was hard to figure out), it becomes clear that their opinions on the siblings are murkier than they previously admitted; but that might not do much to change the reader’s opinion as to whether there’s anything likable or indeed, relatable, about the Wrens. The author claims inspiration from Wes Anderson’s filmThe Royal Tenenbaums. She is clearly trying to establish the Wrens as Anderson types, charmingly quirky failures who have difficulty saying what they feel, struggling under the weight of expectations not fulfilled. Anderson’s cinematic world is contrived and artificial, existing in a sidestep from our reality; however, he can generally make his odd characters seem genuine. But Blake’s strange bundles of traits never quite coalesce as believable people.

Blake is gifted at attaining bestseller status; ascertaining her talent for authentic drama is more difficult.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192401798
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	04/01/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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