âA brutally honest and haunting cautionary taleâĻexposing the lie that is meritocracy and the unrelenting toll that being a final girl takes. A bloody tale spun masterfullyâĻa dark delight.â âFaridah ÃbÃkÊ-ÃyÃmÃdÊ, 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 arenât just high, theyâre deadly, in this âspine-chilling thrillerâ (Publishers Weekly).
You must work twice as hard to get half as much.
Adina Walker has known this the entire time sheâs been on scholarship at the prestigious Edgewater Academyâa school for the rich (and mostly white) upper class of New England. Itâs 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 sheâs sacrificed everything for is the Finish, a high-stakes contest sponsored by Edgewaterâs 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 isnât 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 Finishâs stakes arenât just make or breakâĻtheyâre life and death.
Adina knows the deck is stacked against herâit always has beenâso maybe the only way to survive their vicious games is for her to change the rules.