It took me a minute to finish this story and I had to push through this book a little, but in the end, I have to say it was a very thought provoking and emotional rollercoaster for these characters and I was invested. They were not always likable, but the personal struggles of each of the siblings and inner demons they needed to confront made them seem relatable for anyone who has ever had a sibling rivalry and vied for the acknowledgement of their parent.

It's told from multiple POVs, so you get to know the inner thoughts and feelings of each of these characters and see the journey they each go through. At times, it seemed like so much bickering, bitterness, and despair, but then this is in the setting of a mega successful/ dysfunctional family drama after the head of the family has passed away. Instead of watching a train wreck and not being able to look away, this book was like reading it as it was happening!

I’m not much of a television watcher, so I haven’t seen Succession, but it definitely seems like this is a spin on that concept but ~with magic~. I can’t speak to whether it feels stale to those who’ve watched the show, but I had a hell of a good time.

Meredith (a tech founder), Arthur (a politician), and Eilidh (a former professional dancer) are the children of the recently deceased CEO of the world’s biggest tech+magic company. They travel back to his estate to plan the funeral and see who he trusted (or loved?) enough to leave them his shares in the company. But there are questions about the will, so while the lawyers figure it out, the three siblings turn toward their own personal crises and their relationships to one another.

Admittedly, this book starts off slow. I spent the first 25% or so wondering if I was pushing myself through yet another set of unlikeable characters in a dysfunctional family. But then I laughed for the twentieth time and the side characters were fantastic and suddenly I was deeply attached and rooting for each of them and MY HEART WAS IN IT. The plot was a little predictable, but I didn’t mind at all.

Do I think this is a “can’t miss” book? Probably not. Was it deeply entertaining? Absolutely. If you’re looking for something funny and unserious and also heartfelt, pick this up.

Succession, but with a touch of dark fantasy and all the morally grey vibes. This is a book about privilege, dynasty, class, corruption, and power. It’s about family, expectation, and spoiled siblings who grapple with their various complexes.
.
So many truly awful characters that you somehow end up loving and rooting for 🩶.
.
Blake’s writing makes me pause and “oof” out loud. She always gets to the heart of something about life and humanity that you can sense, but can’t quite put to words.
.
Three siblings stand to take over their tech giant father’s empire. There’s Meredith, the classic over achieving eldest daughter, Arthur, the young congressman with a struggling marriage, and Eilidh, the former world famous ballerina. Which sibling will take over the empire? And will they all make it out alive?
.
The thing about an Olivie Blake book is: you will come out of it learning something about life, something about yourself, that you didn’t even know you still needed to understand.
.
Her books may not always be packed with big splashy action scenes, but they are packed with the violence and chaos of being human, having free will, and grappling with what it all means.
.
Blake has a read on life, the human condition, that gets to the heart of things and hits you in the gut 🫶.
.
.
Thank you @torbooks for the gifted physical book and digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!
.
.
.
Gifted & Talented - Olivie Blake
4.5/5⭐️

4.5 ⭐️

When CEO and tech billionaire Thayer Wren unexpectedly meets his end, there is only one question that begs an answer — who inherits the Wrenfare throne? In this Succession meets fantasy, we follow the three Wren siblings as they grapple with the sudden reality that their father has died, along with their many preexisting individual issues (conditions if you will), and now legal complications. With a bit of dangerous magic, ambition, rivalries, dysfunctional families, and the crushing weight of unrealized potential — this book has it all.

I lost track of the amount of times I put this book down and walked away in fear of what may come. 😂 I cried. I laughed. I yelled into the ether. Ms Blake has a penchant for causing me severe emotional pain. And yet I keep coming back. Character study is one of Blake’s many strengths, this book is proof of that.

Read If You Like:
🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Dysfunctional family dynamics
✨ Magical Vibes
💰 Inheritance drama
🌚 Morally gray characters
🏙️ Corporate and political satire
☠️ Dark humor and sharp prose

Gifted & Talented is a genre-blending novel that reads like a magical satire of corporate dynasties and familial trauma. It truly is so messy and I loved the drama with the mess!

The story focuses on what comes next when Thayer Wren, head of a powerful magitech empire dies & his three estranged adult children are pulled back into each other’s orbit—and into a legacy none of them truly wants, but all of them may destroy.

💄 Meredith is a biotech CEO with a secret so dangerous it could change the future of magic.
🗳️ Arthur is a rising political star whose ambition is only rivaled by his self-loathing.
🩰 Eilidh, once a prima ballerina, now lives in exile after a violent outburst exposed the volatility of her powers.

Their inheritance? A company soaked in secrets, magic, and ambition—and a will that pits them against each other in a competition that might ruin them all.

Their story dissects the idea of giftedness—not as a blessing, but as a burden laced with ego, isolation, and the haunting pressure to achieve.

The prose is razor-sharp, at times veering into meta commentary from God our narrator for their story and fourth-wall-breaking asides that underscore the absurdity of the story being told.

Gifted & Talented is a story about inheritance, power, and the high cost of being exceptional. It’s unsettling, incisive, and utterly hypnotic—perfect for readers who like their magic messy and their characters even messier.

While I enjoyed the story, for me it was personally missing that spark to rate higher, though I was looking forward to it after reading and loving my first book from Olivie recently.

Thanks so much to Tor for my gifted finished hardback copy and to Macmillan audio for my gifted finished audiobook copy!

Perhaps Olivie is not for me, because I found the characters (overall) are a little bit insufferable... And I really do enjoy insufferable characters, but the pretentiousness was TOOOO MUCH. I enjoyed the inner-family politics and the cutthroat nature of each person's relationship with each other and their parents, but it just reached a point where I felt like things were repetitive and painful to read.

Fun story and very interesting premise. I always love olivie blakes books! The magic felt like a small part of the story and definitely felt more character driven. Very unlikeable characters but those are my favorite to read about lol. The book had a great concept and I wish we could delve into the magic system a little more because I found it very interesting!

"Where there’s a will, there’s a war."

Despite Olivie Blake's books being on my TBR for far to long, this was my first novel by her. Given the book by Netgalley (thank you) and loved the cover- I knew I had to dive in.
This book has an errie feeling about it, if you know what I mean. Definitely descriptive and atmospheric to say the least. The characters were well thought out, creative and dimensional. At times, it was so setting/characterizing based that I forgot there was a novel taking place. This book felt heavily weighed down by the writing of it all. I felt that the storyline wasn't well developed due to the heavily detailed scenes. I am going to keep an eye out for future books by this author, but this one was just mid for me.

I was really surprised by this one. Recommended to readers who enjoyed the TV show Succession, family drama, and a dash of magical realism. The dialogue was witty and the characters will well-written.

I was eagerly anticipating this newest instalment by Blake. I generally love their writing and the stories she tells. This one however fell completely flat for me. There was no real plot, it was all character driven, but the characters are all shallow, pretentious, shells of characters, masquerading as deep and interesting when they are just garbage people. The narration style was an interesting choice. Lots of quips coming from the narrator direct to the audience. This narrator is “God” and has chapters that are entirely asides from them. I feel like there asides would make the audiobook version of this confusing. These “God” chapters gave the reader background information and details they needed but couldn’t seemingly be worked into the story another way and it seemed lazy writing to me.

I do normally like Blake’s writing style but it was very word soupy. Unnecessarily so. An editor really needed to take some red pen to this. It did not need to be so rambling and wordy. Most chapters could have cut the word count in half and it would have been a marked improvement.

The story is advertised as fantasy meets succession but honestly, the fantasy element was so minimal, it seemed disingenuous to use it in promotion.

Overall it seemed half baked and unedited and not at the level of enjoyment I usually expect from an Olivie Blake book.

I love Olivie sooo much and I was so excited to get this book. I actually got the special edition Fairyloot book of this as well. She is an autobuy author for me anyway! Loved it!

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🫑


I really enjoyed the writing style of this one. It's omniscient third person, the narrator being an omnipotent deity (until it wasn’t lol) observing the happenings and goings-on. It's giving a cross between the crisp dialogue in Ninth House/Hell Bent and the funny observations in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The siblings are all terrible people and I enjoyed how they kept ruining their own lives. 😌

I love how Olivie develops each of the siblings to process their trauma, and how she uses the magic system to manifest their pain into the story to really drive the impact. Succession in a fantasy world, and my god the DADDY ISSUES 😮‍💨

I received this as an eARC from Tor Publishing Group in exchange for my honest review, and boy howdy did I enjoy it! I’m so grateful to get the chance to review and I can’t wait for Girl Dinner to release for more of Olivie’s unique writing style!

As with an Olivie Blake novel, she presents such complex, multi-layered characters. This was so full of sibling drama and had Succession vibes, that you can't help but be drawn in. I literally had to take a couple of days after reading before I could make sense of it all. This novel had everything: power, ambition, talent, and the highs and lows that come with such qualities. Definitely a novel to ponder over. Well done, Ms Blake!

It usually takes me time to really make sense of my feelings about an Olivie Blake novel once I’ve finished. Her work tends to be the type that I prefer to ruminate on and discuss with other folks, especially given that even within her own readers, there are often divides in which piece of Blake fiction is the one you’re most drawn to. I’ve now read five of Blake’s adult novels, but I still find myself surprised at the masterful way she takes a simple plot and teases out a story that feels so uniquely hers. In Gifted & Talented, for instance, we follow a week in the lives of the three Wren siblings as they come together after their father’s untimely demise to find out which one of them inherited his company. While that is, in fact, the main throughline that ties this novel together, there are some distinctly Olivie Blake elements, including a cheeky, irreverent omniscient narrator; lengthy paragraphs where tangents are explored, things are described, or histories are revealed; witty conversations and surprisingly tender moments of vulnerability between the cast of characters, just to name a few.

Personally, what I like best about Blake’s work is how each of her novels can be read as thoughtfully written character studies. There’s just something in the way that she crafts her characters that feels true, so much so that they leap off the page. Whether or not you like the character/s or agree with everything they think or feel or that occurs at their behest is beside the point; what actually matters is that they feel like real people that you might be passing on the street or hearing about on the news and, because the majority of us can’t help our curiosity, you’ll find that you can’t look away from finding out what happens next – whether it’s because you need to know what trouble they’ll get into next or if you’re rooting for them to find their version of happiness.

In Gifted & Talented, we get the chance to be in the heads of each of the Wren siblings. Meredith, Arthur and Eilidh are far from the easiest people like right away; it’s hard to feel understanding towards these three privileged, wealthy individuals upon their initial introduction. But as the book goes on, we read about what or who they love, fear, or desire. We learn about what or who might have hurt them, and the experiences that have shaped them. We get to see their interpersonal relationships: their complicated sibling dynamic, their individual romantic entanglements, their relationship with acquaintances, strangers and the world at large. Slowly, a truer, more nuanced picture of each sibling starts to come together – and that’s when you realize (or at the very least, I did) that you are hoping that they are able to navigate their individual emotional maelstroms successfully.

I went into Gifted & Talented with no expectations, save for it being an experience the way every other Olivie Blake novel has been for me – and that’s exactly what it was. Gifted & Talented is a book that is not going to be for every reader; but for the readers who find themselves connecting to these characters and their story (like me, I should say), it’s going to work pretty darn well.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Gifted & Talented.

This was my first book by the author and it may be my last.

The premise was intriguing but I found the writing style difficult to read and follow.

It was long-winded, flowery, boring, and tedious; it took too long to get to the point and the supernatural elements of the narrative barely factored into the story.

This author is not for me.

I am such a massive Olivie Blake fan, and I'm so glad this lived up to my expectations! It felt different than some of her other work, but still had the same mastery and voice that I love from her writing. Highly recommend!

I feel very torn about this book because I feel like it had everything I needed to love it, but it also felt like there was something missing, so I'm landing on a 4 star rating even though I don't think I can accurately talk about what I felt was missing. So instead, I'll talk about all of the things I loved. My favorite part about this book was the tone of it and the how the conversations were written between characters. The way that they would get annoyed at each other, or poke fun at each other, or even make jokes that built off of what the other had said felt so realistic. I love how there were often conversations with tensions where you knew both characters were mad or annoyed, but it wouldn't escalate until later. You could completely feel the tension build over many different conversations in a way that I don't know I've ever seen before. I also loved the evolution of relationships between the entire cast. You got an idea of how everyone felt about each other and the way they would talk to each other was unique to each pairing or grouping. Olivie Blake definitely creates unique characters and knows their voice so well. Overall, I think this was a fantastic character study and I actually think I would enjoy a sequel to this even more than this book because I'm so curious to see where these characters go from here.

This will be included in a reading vlog on my youtube channel, but that is not yet uploaded, so I don't currently have a link for it.

This book surprised me with how poetic the writing was. The magical abilities in the story weren’t just cool extras; they actually added a whole new depth to the characters and their inner worlds, which I really appreciated. Is it something I’d read again? Probably not. It’s one of those books that hits in the moment, but not one I’d revisit. Still, I enjoyed the experience while I was in it. If you’re into beautiful writing with a touch of the fantastical with some thrills, it’s worth picking up.

3.75/5⭐️

Olivie Blake is such an interesting writer to read! I’ve enjoyed all of her books and this was not an exception. I love how she incorporates the supernatural into the everyday world in such a way that it just seems like common knowledge. I loved the “God’s” (if you get it, you get it) view in this book and how we got to see so many different perspectives to get the whole picture. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of how long some of the chapters were, I REALLY enjoyed the immensely short chapters that seemed to balance it out. Plus, the book was just very humorous at parts without it seeming like it was trying to force the humour. I can’t wait to start reading her next book.

Thank you Olivie Blake, Tor Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC!

I wasn't super invested in this one until about the 70% mark, which is crazy work considering this book is like over 500 pages. There was just something about it that put me in the worst reading slump I've had all year. It's not a BAD book, but I was BORED out of my mind. Had this book not been sent to me by the publisher, I probably would not have finished it. The whole story basically revolves around estranged siblings with magic powers gathering together to read a will from their tech/magic magistrate father. These magical abilities are barely explored or explained despite initially sounding interesting. Olivie Blake does this annoying thing where she doesn't explain things and justifies it by having the character she's writing say they "don't feel like explaining things" in a snarky way.

SO. The three stars.

I still liked it actually! One of the great things about NetGalley (and your local library, don't sleep on them) is that I can try out books I normally wouldn't gravitate to for free.
I actually don't normally read fantasy so, after the aforementioned 70% mark, I was honestly relieved there wasn't a complex magic system to contend with. Plus, I think seeing the Wren siblings all together was MUCH more interesting than writing them apart. Combine that with some pretty memorable side characters (I especially loved Gillian) and it was actually pretty moving and profound. I wouldn't reread it necessarily but I wouldn't dismiss it as a total waste of time either. So...good!