Quick Synopsis – 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.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness.

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.

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.

Song This Reminds Me Of – Ship to Wreck by Florence + The Machine

Publication Date – April 1, 2025

Bookshop Link – Order Here

Content Notes – This book has death of a parent (off-page), classism, sexism, drug use, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, and themes of grief.

Spicy Rating – 🌶️

Overall Rating – ⭐⭐.75 out of 5

Review – Look, I think a lot of us were labeled gifted and talented in school only to let the pressure of it crush us in different ways. This book focuses on three rich kids whose dad sucked and now the kids are just kind of crappy adults. Really this book shows that maybe money can’t buy happiness, but it sure as hell can ruin you as a person when you have pretty much no structure and no consequences.

I didn’t really like this book, mostly because I’m not sympathetic to billionaires and it really seemed like maybe three therapy sessions could have solved a lot of the siblings’ problems. Meredith is a self-proclaimed genius prodigy who just wants to be as good as or better than her father, Arthur just wants to be loved, and Eilidh doesn’t know who she is and is very isolated. Also they all three have magical powers which is never really explained other than yes there is magic in the world. That really bugged me, there are several mentions to curses, spells, and the general occult, but they are thrown away comments. It felt like magic could have been a much bigger plot point or world-building element and it was just thrown away as a shrug.

I did like the overall themes of the book, of not feeling like you’re really a part of a family and how expectations can crush you. But this really just felt like whiny rich kids who also had a bit of magic. The plot was too slow moving and I didn’t really find anything in the book to be that interesting.

If you like books about family dynamics and finding yourself, you might like this book. It just wasn’t it for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own.