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Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake

Fantasy

Gifted & Talented

by Olivie Blake

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Quick take

You can have all the money and magic in the world and still mess things up in this fantastical family drama.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, LGBTQ_themes

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Salacious

    Salacious

Synopsis

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?

Content warning

This book contains mentions of eating disorders.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Gifted & Talented.

Gifted & Talented

1

Meredith Wren, a fucking asshole, not that it matters at this stage of the narrative but it’s worth pointing out, sat blinded by the overhead lights from the stage, squinting unflatteringly into the brand-new, state-of-the-art auditorium that had just been completed on Tyche’s unethically verdant campus. Too large a venue for an event of this nature, which would reasonably be attended by only the most ardent of nerds. Well, them, and anyone who stood to gain from her success financially. A forum for dorks and despots.

As her eyes adjusted to the masses bearing witness to her greatness, Meredith saw nothing but the pockets of empty seats. Jesus Christ, she thought, and wondered if the squinting was worsening her burgeoning crow’s feet. Blinking, she made a concerted effort to simply go blind. She became aware of something, a stye most likely, oh god, a stye, she hadn’t had one of those since her early college days, back when she’d still had the balls to fall into bed with makeup on, recklessly. She was meticulous now with her skincare ritual, how was it possible she could accumulate grime at this stage of her life? At this great age, how could she succumb to something so pedestrian as a stye? She blinked and wanted desperately to lie down, to eat a whole sleeve of pistachio macarons. To gorge herself from bed and never rise again. Just kidding. Ha ha.

From the crowd she became aware of notable faces. Ward, obviously. He was her business partner, like it or not. Cass, too, that was nice. Expected to some extent, as he was something-something operations at Tyche (she and Cass had had to disclose their personal relationship when Tyche’s partnership with Birdsong first went public, a relationship that was then only hazy at best—she’d been surprised Cass had managed to come up with a term that wasn’t “fucking sometimes”), but still, nice. Foster was smiling benevolently at her, the cunt. She’d taken the money, what did that make her? A traitor, fine, shut up. (She always heard unwelcome commentary in Lou’s voice.) Don’t bite the hand that feeds, Meredith thought for the eight millionth time. One of her father’s pet wisdoms—you can have money or you can have pride, and guess which one changes the world? Then there was a row of normal-looking people, suitably showered, probably journalists. Press badges, yep, journalists. Someone from Wired, a few from Magitek, someone who looked a lot like the boy she’d nearly cut and run for, but that was par for the course—she saw Jamie Ammar at least five times a week, usually in line at the grocery store. At Demeter, specifically. It was always some other absurdly handsome man in the ill-fitting jeans of the aughts.

God, but this one really looked like Jamie.

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Member ratings (318)

400+ pages
My Friends
Home of the American Circus
Silver Elite
The Bombshell
Gifted & Talented
Enchantra
Oathbound
Rebel Witch
We All Live Here
Kingdom of Claw
First-Time Caller
Babylonia
The Favorites
The Thirteenth Child
Homeseeking
Most Wonderful
The Courting of Bristol Keats
Pictures of You
PS: I Hate You
The Road of Bones
Intermezzo
The Dagger and the Flame
The Wild Huntress
The Crimson Crown
Here One Moment
Phantasma
The Pairing
All the Colors of the Dark
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
The Demon of Unrest
Five Broken Blades
Real Americans
Table for Two
The Familiar
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
Just for the Summer
The Wives
A Fate Inked in Blood
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard
The Fox Wife
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
Ready or Not
Heartless Hunter
The Women
Family Family
Ruthless Vows
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
The Frozen River
The Future
What We Kept to Ourselves
Wellness
The Fragile Threads of Power
You, Again
Happiness Falls
Shark Heart
Love, Theoretically
The Only One Left
The First Ladies
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Warrior Girl Unearthed
The True Love Experiment
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Yours Truly
Hello Beautiful
I Have Some Questions for You
The Last Russian Doll
The Shards
Hell Bent
Age of Vice
A Wilderness of Stars
Babel
The Circus Train
Before I Let Go
Bloodmarked
The Last Party
Foul Lady Fortune
Sign Here
Thistlefoot
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
Bronze Drum
The It Girl
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Part of Your World
Lessons in Chemistry
The Good Left Undone
Kaikeyi
True Biz
Booth
Peach Blossom Spring
Black Cake
Will
Still Life
The Keeper of Night
The Book of Magic
The Lincoln Highway
Apples Never Fall
In Every Mirror She's Black
Damnation Spring
One Last Stop
Half Sick of Shadows
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
What Comes After
In a Book Club Far Away
The Four Winds
Black Buck
The City We Became
The Prophets
Legendborn
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Friends and Strangers
Evicted
The End of October
The Book of Longings
The Great Believers
Yes No Maybe So
Anna K
Red, White & Royal Blue
When the Stars Lead to You
Ninth House
The Fountains of Silence
Frankly in Love
Permanent Record
This Tender Land
The Reckless Oath We Made
The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World
The Gifted School
Free Food for Millionaires
Ask Again, Yes
All the Light We Cannot See
Sky Without Stars
Night Music
Small Fry
One Day in December
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
The Great Alone
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
A Million Junes
The Nightingale
Behold the Dreamers
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Secret History
Dead Wake
Salt to the Sea
& Sons
Palace of Treason
400+ pages
View all
My Friends
Home of the American Circus
Silver Elite
The Bombshell
Gifted & Talented
Enchantra
Oathbound
Rebel Witch
We All Live Here
Kingdom of Claw
First-Time Caller
Babylonia
The Favorites
The Thirteenth Child
Homeseeking
Most Wonderful
The Courting of Bristol Keats
Pictures of You
PS: I Hate You
The Road of Bones
Intermezzo
The Dagger and the Flame
The Wild Huntress
The Crimson Crown
Here One Moment
Phantasma
The Pairing
All the Colors of the Dark
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
The Demon of Unrest
Five Broken Blades
Real Americans
Table for Two
The Familiar
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
Just for the Summer
The Wives
A Fate Inked in Blood
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard
The Fox Wife
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
Ready or Not
Heartless Hunter
The Women
Family Family
Ruthless Vows
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
The Frozen River
The Future
What We Kept to Ourselves
Wellness
The Fragile Threads of Power
You, Again
Happiness Falls
Shark Heart
Love, Theoretically
The Only One Left
The First Ladies
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Warrior Girl Unearthed
The True Love Experiment
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Yours Truly
Hello Beautiful
I Have Some Questions for You
The Last Russian Doll
The Shards
Hell Bent
Age of Vice
A Wilderness of Stars
Babel
The Circus Train
Before I Let Go
Bloodmarked
The Last Party
Foul Lady Fortune
Sign Here
Thistlefoot
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
Bronze Drum
The It Girl
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Part of Your World
Lessons in Chemistry
The Good Left Undone
Kaikeyi
True Biz
Booth
Peach Blossom Spring
Black Cake
Will
Still Life
The Keeper of Night
The Book of Magic
The Lincoln Highway
Apples Never Fall
In Every Mirror She's Black
Damnation Spring
One Last Stop
Half Sick of Shadows
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
What Comes After
In a Book Club Far Away
The Four Winds
Black Buck
The City We Became
The Prophets
Legendborn
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Friends and Strangers
Evicted
The End of October
The Book of Longings
The Great Believers
Yes No Maybe So
Anna K
Red, White & Royal Blue
When the Stars Lead to You
Ninth House
The Fountains of Silence
Frankly in Love
Permanent Record
This Tender Land
The Reckless Oath We Made
The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World
The Gifted School
Free Food for Millionaires
Ask Again, Yes
All the Light We Cannot See
Sky Without Stars
Night Music
Small Fry
One Day in December
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
The Great Alone
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
A Million Junes
The Nightingale
Behold the Dreamers
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Secret History
Dead Wake
Salt to the Sea
& Sons
Palace of Treason