The Wilde Trials

Gr 9 Up–Each year, elite boarding school Wilde Academy hosts a seniors-only wilderness competition in which 12 challengers compete for a $600,000 cash prize on the grounds of the founder’s abandoned estate. Chloe Gatti, a scholarship student, needs to win in order to pay for her younger sister’s cancer treatments, even at the cost of driving a deep wedge between herself and ex-boyfriend Hayes Stratford, whose older brother Hunter died in the Wilde Trials during a previous year. As the Trials heat up, Chloe discovers that the competition itself may be the least of her worries: an anonymous blackmailer threatens to expose her as an academic cheater, and the discovery of Hunter’s journal suggests his death may not have been an accident. Chloe and Hayes are forced together in their joint quest to survive the Trials and piece together Hunter’s story, despite the tension that still simmers between them. Like the author’s earlier The Rosewood Hunt, this book offers an engaging premise that mixes mystery and high-stakes competition among wealthy teens. The haunting setting of the abandoned Wilde Estate is well-conveyed and memorable, although the central mystery falls somewhat flat and the Trials themselves lack excitement and tension.