A wickedly comic feminist mystery about the dark side of a hopeless romantic’s seemingly perfect love story—for readers of Jessica Goodman and Kara Thomas.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jordyn Taylor’s The Revenge Game, which is out November 7th!
Alyson is a romantic, and sometimes it gets her into trouble. Like last summer, she thought her co-worker was into her, when in reality he found her flirting pathetic.
Then she meets Brenton Riggs Jr., and right away she knows that their connection isn’t just in her head. When he swoops in to save her one night from a less than savory party encounter, she falls head-over-heels. Finally, someone Alyson likes who likes her back!
But when she finds out about the King’s Cup—a competition the guy’s at their boarding school started to see who has the most sexual prowress—she’s put on edge. Does Brenton really want to be with her, or is he just trying to win? Then Alyson and the other girls at the school start a competition of their own: The Queen’s Cup. It’s all about reclaiming their power. But as the compeition heats up, Alyson’s relationship begins to fall apart—and it isn’t long before the cracks in her perfect love story start to show through.
“Heyyy.” Riley laughs, and I smell the ghost of a beer. He does one of his hair flicks, this time in the direction of the table. “Grab a drink with me?”
At this point, Jess has turned around, too. She gives Riley a quick once-over before looking at me with her eyebrows raised, and I know she’s telepathically repeating what she told me earlier: If you wanna be thirsty, be thirsty. I guess part of me has been hoping for a tall drink of Riggs instead—which is a totally inefficient strategy for finding someone to fall in love with me. There’s a perfectly fine gentleman standing right here, asking if he can accompany me to the drinks table. I smile at said fine gentleman and tuck my hair behind my ears. “Sure.”
“I’ll be right over there with Mar,” Jess says, nodding to our friend with the bleach-blond pixie cut, Marina Topham, who’s hovering by the island and staring at Tasha like a human heart-eye emoji. It’s amazing how love can transform a leather-and-fishnet-wearing, don’t-mess-with-me badass like my former roommate into a sappy pile of mush. Marina says they started flirting during play rehearsal last fall; Tasha was starring as a pirate captain, and Marina was the assistant stage manager in charge of a complicated entrance involving Tasha descending from the ceiling in a harness and wielding a giant sword. Seeing them around campus holding hands and tracing figure eights on each other’s thighs, I’d give anything to have what they do.
Riley’s palm lands on the small of my back. I take a deep breath and let him steer me through the crowd—and maybe toward something magical. Who knows?
“How’s your night going so far?” He sort of screams it in my ear, but in his defense, the music is pretty loud.
“Good! We just got here. How about you?”
“It’s better now!” He grins, and his cheeks are pink. Is he blushing? When we get to the table, Riley points to the vodka and lemonade, and I give him a thumbs-up. He keeps talking as he pours imprecise amounts of both beverages into a red plastic cup. “We don’t really get a chance to talk in class, so I thought we should get to know each other, you know? You’re really good at French. Like, whenever you read stuff out loud? You sound like you’re actually from French.”
I cock an eyebrow as he hands me the drink. “From French?”
Riley smacks his palm against his forehead. “France! Sorry. I’m, ah . . .” A hopeful butterfly beats its wings inside my chest. Is he about to tell me he’s nervous around me? Riley shakes his head and chuckles. “I’m a little drunk!”
Oh well. It is a party, after all. I take a sip of the vodka lemonade and wrinkle my nose. I’m not a big drinker, and this is heavy on the vodka. Riley grabs what clearly isn’t his first Keystone Light, cracks it open, and takes a swig.
I feel like I could be contributing more to this conversation. “So . . . where are you from?”
Another Riley hair flick. “Troy!”
“No way! I’m from Albany!”
“Oh. Cool!”
I wait for him to put the pieces together that we’re basically next-door neighbors, but he just takes another swig of his beer and shifts his body so that he’s standing right in front of me. My back is against the table, with chairs to either side of me. “My cousins live in Troy, so we’re there all the time!” I tell him. “Have you ever been to the River Fest in the summer?”
“No!” He does a hair flick.
“It’s cool! It’s like . . . a big outdoor market! With music and stuff!”
“Sounds cool!”
Great. I’m just standing here screaming facts at him. There’s an awkward pause as we both presumably search for something to say next, but resort to sipping our drinks instead. Maybe I should go find Jess—that is, if I can figure out a way to extricate myself from the corner Riley’s backed me into. Suddenly, he lands on something to say to me. “So what’s the deal with your friend’s shirt?” He makes air quotes with his free hand. “‘Smash the Patriarchy’?”
“What about it?”
“What’s she trying to say? That she hates dudes or something?”
Apparently, the old Sullivan curriculum was missing some pretty basic stuff. “No, she doesn’t hate dudes. She just wants everyone to be treated equally.”
Riley mulls this over, shifting his weight so he ends up even closer to me somehow. I press myself as hard as I can against the edge of the table to retain some semblance of personal space, but it goes out the window when he leans in to talk in my ear. “Okay, but here’s the thing I still don’t get. You liked it when I made you a drink, right?”
What I’d like is for Riley to back up a bit. “Hey, do you mind if I squeeze out?”
“But you didn’t answer my question.”
“What was it again?”
“Well, what I was basically getting at is, am I ‘problematic’ now”—he makes air quotes—“if I do something nice for a girl?”
Code red. Must escape this inane interaction. And if I have to smell one more of the beer burps that he keeps trying to blow out the side of his mouth, I think I might throw up. “Riley, of course not.”
“Then explain to me—”
“Riley, I—”
What happens next is so shocking and swift, my brain can hardly process the sequence of events. Someone approaches Riley from behind and sweeps him aside like a curtain. This same person throws a muscular arm around my shoulder, pulls me into their side, and whispers in my ear: “Just go with it.” While Riley sputters and tries to wipe the spilled Keystone Light off his shirt, the same voice exclaims, “ALYSON BENOWITZ! I have been looking everywhere for you.” They guide me to the most easily accessible exit: the sliding glass doors to the back deck. The blast of fresh, evergreen-scented air is a gift after what just happened. I inhale it in gulps.
It isn’t until we’re safely outside, the door sealed shut behind us, that I look up into the face of my rescuer.
My stomach does a somersault.
It’s Riggs.
