Worth Playing For: A Novel

A woman begrudgingly takes her identical twin sister's place on a reality competition show, but there’s more than money at stake when she fakes a strategic relationship with another contestant—her first love—in this thrilling debut romance.

Willa was never supposed to have the adventure. That path was Bernie's—the golden child and not the twin dealing with a quarter-life crisis while working at Sip & Scrab, their family’s struggling board game cafe. But when Bernie can no longer compete on Rival Isle, a new reality survival show, Willa must secretly take her place in hopes of winning the million-dollar prize. Spending four weeks on a deserted island competing against total strangers is her literal nightmare, but she'll do anything to save the cafe from bankruptcy.

Her concerns of passport fraud and sleeping in the sand are soon forgotten when she comes face to face, as Bernie, with fellow competitor Noel, the man who broke her heart eight years ago. But she needs to play smart, and upon learning that they'll need to appeal to their rivals and at-home voters to stay in the game, the two form an alliance and on-screen-only romance. After all, who doesn't love a love story?

Between underwater endurance challenges, double-crossing elimination ceremonies, and never-ending meals of coconuts and rice, Willa unlocks a side of herself that's long been buried. But as she reconnects with Noel under the mask of Bernie, it becomes harder to distinguish what's real and what's for the game. Caught between the tides of public perception and private longing, Willa must ask herself: Are her feelings really just for show?