Their Vicious Games

By: Joelle Wellington

Narrated by: Ariel Blake

“A brutally honest and haunting cautionary tale…exposing the lie that is meritocracy and the unrelenting toll that being a final girl takes. A bloody tale spun masterfully…a dark delight.” —Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, New York Times bestselling author of Ace of Spades

A Black teen desperate to regain her Ivy League acceptance enters an elite competition only to discover the stakes aren’t just high, they’re deadly, in this “spine-chilling thriller” (Publishers Weekly).

You must work twice as hard to get half as much.

Adina Walker has known this the entire time she’s been on scholarship at the prestigious Edgewater Academy—a school for the rich (and mostly white) upper class of New England. It’s why she works so hard to be perfect and above reproach, no matter what she must force beneath the surface. Even one slip can cost you everything.

And it does. One fight, one moment of lost control, leaves Adina blacklisted from her top choice Ivy League college and any other. Her only chance to regain the future she’s sacrificed everything for is the Finish, a high-stakes contest sponsored by Edgewater’s founding family in which twelve young, ambitious women with exceptional promise are selected to compete in three mysterious events: the Ride, the Raid, and the Royale. The winner will be granted entry into the fold of the Remington family, whose wealth and power can open any door.

But when she arrives at the Finish, Adina quickly gets the feeling that something isn’t quite right with both the Remingtons and her fellow competitors, and soon it becomes clear that this larger-than-life prize can only come at an even greater cost. Because the Finish’s stakes aren’t just make or break…they’re life and death.

Adina knows the deck is stacked against her—it always has been—so maybe the only way to survive their vicious games is for her to change the rules.

Critic reviews

"Blake portrays Alina’s determination as she tries to navigate the treachery of the game. Subtle changes in timbre help differentiate the other characters; for example, a tone of superiority perfectly denotes the stuck-up Leighton. A fiendish page-turner worth listening to."

tew good

knocked this book out in just under 2 days, i adored every minute nothing was dull or seemed to drag on and on. will forever recommend

Will You Finish ….

Listreeen!!! This book here.. is so good .. the first few chapters give the back story … buy once you get into it; it’s a story … about fighting for your life — what you know , think you know and need to know … trusting yourself and others who are different from you … everyone played a role and a game … but will you finish is the question… so good!

What a great debut!!

As a person over the age of 35 i will admit that this isn’t my normal genre. Going in blind with no expectations, i was pleasantly impressed with the plot and story of Adina. Felt like Hunger Games meets Mean Girls. I literally spent the entire day listening it’s 9pm and I’m still in my pjs! I could totally see this book being made into a limited series. And i would watch it even knowing what happens. I wasn’t sold on the narrator at first feeling like she sounded too old for the character but within a few chapters i quite enjoyed her and since she’s a new narrator to me I’ll be excited to look for more of her work.

Only the strong survive

This was great! It puts you in the mindset of hunger games! I loved every bit of it!

The rich & their games

Makes you wonder if this story has any truth to it. great read. Suspenseful and shocking.