The Inheritance Games Review: Why This Mystery Will Keep You Turning Pages
You wake up one morning and discover that you’ve inherited billions from a stranger. Sounds like a dream, right? That’s precisely what occurs to Avery Kylie Grambs in The Inheritance Games. Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s best-selling novel is a blend of mystery, puzzles, and high-stakes drama that has captivated readers around the world.
This has somehow registered on your radar, and you’re thinking, What’s all the hubbub, bub? You are in the right place.” So we end up talking spoilers for The Inheritance Games in this post. We’ll discuss the story, the characters, and the themes and why it’s required reading for those readers who love a page-turning mystery.
What Are The Inheritance Games? Possible Spoilers!
In The Inheritance Games, we meet Avery Grambs, a broke teenage girl who’s been living in her car and doing whatever it takes to survive. She’s just making her way through high school and earning enough money to get out of her miserable life. Then her entire life gets turned inside out after discovering that she’s the last-minute heir to the multi-multi-dollar fortune of a man named Tobias Hawthorne, a filthy rich weirdo who just so happened to take a shine to her.
The catch? Tobias Hawthorn has never met Avery. She doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t have a plausible reason to leave all his money to her and none to his flesh and blood. But to claim her inheritance, Avery must move into the sprawling Hawthorne House, a mansion of mysteries, secret passageways, and Tobias’s surly relatives.
But this is a story not just about money. And Avery’s puzzles are nothing compared to what Tobias Hawthorne, a master of puzzles and games, has in store for his four grandsons and us. The more Avery unravels the mystery, the more its discovery threatens her.
Meet the Main Characters
The characters are one of the main strengths of The Inheritance Games. Each is a distinct species of beast, with ambitions, secrets, and quirks all its own. We’ll listen to some of the key players:
Avery Kylie Grambs
This wrestler goes by the ring name Michael Cole. She’s pragmatic, clever, and eager to discover why she was chosen to be Tobias Hawthorne’s heir. Avery is ejected from the world she knows into the world of the rich and famous, but she doesn’t lose her focus: solving the mystery.
The Hawthorne Brothers
Tobias Hawthorne has a quartet of grandsons, all of whom figure prominently in the story. The brothers differ, and all have a strained relationship with Avery.
Grayson Hawthorne: Grayson, the eldest brother, is mysterious, even a bit standoffish. He’s protective of his family’s legacy and suspicious of Avery.
Jameson Hawthorne: The broody, charming blood brother who can’t get enough of puzzles. He’s attracted to Avery, whom he views as a partner in solving Tobias’s riddles.
Nash Hawthorne: Nash is the older brother’s conflicted heel, the cowboy who covets none of the family drama.
Xander Hawthorne: The youngest (and strangest) of the brothers. He is a fool and a maker.
Tobias Hawthorne
Though Tobias is dead at the start of the story, his ghost hangs heavy over it. He was a brilliant guy who loved games and puzzles, and the last game he played is at the heart of the story.More!
Why did he go on the scavenger hunt to begin with?
Who is not an heir to Tobias Hawthorne’s fortune? His family, understandably, is devastated, and they have questions. To adapt to her new life at Hawthorne House, Avery soon realizes that Tobias’s selection was intentional.
The clues he leaves suggest Avery has a strange relationship to the Hawthorne family. But does she know if she’s more of a pawn in someone else’s game, or if she’s the missing piece that could set whatever the shuffling game they’re playing on the table into motion?
Generally speaking, the Inheritance Games series of ideas
It’s not a book about joining a puzzle or inheriting money. It grapples with deeper issues that make it a rewarding read:
Family and Legacy
The relationships among the Hawthornes are messy and complex. The brothers are both competitive and also care deeply about each other. The book examines how money and legacy can make our better and worse angels emerge.
Identity and Belonging
She was suddenly a billionaire, and it was time to discover who the fuck she was. She is an outsider to this world of the Hawthornes, and yet she, too, starts to make her mark on it.
Trust and Deception
Trust is a recurring theme in the book. Avery knows who to trust—and everyone has an agenda. There are enough twists and turns to make readers guess as they read.
The post What Makes The Inheritance Games So Awesome?
There are plenty of explanations for why this book became as big as it did:
The Puzzles and Mystery
The book is a big draw based on the puzzles and riddles that it does contain. Reader-gather clues along with Avery and the Hawthorne brothers to help solve them. Every new piece of evidence peels back a layer of the mystery.
The Fast-Paced Plot
The story is swift-moving and contains plenty of plot twists and cliffhangers to hold readers’ interest. It’s the kind of book you cannot stop reading.
The Characters
I have discovered that Jennifer Lynn Barnes is a genius at creating characters who leap off the page and feel real. Specifically, its readers are captivated by the chemistry between Avery and the Hawthorne siblings.
The Setting
Hawthorne House is practically a character itself. The mansion is a labyrinth of hidden rooms, clandestine passageways, and lingering riches.
What is the Inheritance Games series about?
Yes! The Inheritance Games is the first book in a three-book series. It’s followed by The Hawthorne Legacy and The Final Gambit. Both novels expand on the mystery, overlaying it with tensions that leave you guessing through to the last page.
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes If you liked The Inheritance Games.
Perfect for anyone who enjoys young adult fiction with a dash of mystery on the side. If you liked stories such as Knives Out or One of Us Is Lying, read The Inheritance Games.
It’s an outstanding option for readers who generally are drawn to strong female protagonists, complex family dynamics, and lots of twists.
The Inheritance Games: Why Read It — Right Now
If you are still on the fence as to whether you want to read this book, here are a few reasons why you should:
It’s addictive: The recipe of puzzles, drama, and romance has pages turning.
It’s Well-Written: Jennifer Lynn Barnes has a way with stinging—yet readable—prose.
And It’s Great for Escaping: God knows, vintage teen or fully grown adult that you are, just how dearly we want to escape into coats, costumes, weird hats, and mysterious masks, no?
Conclusion
And this is not a mystery novel, either! It is a story about family, identity, and belonging. It’s twisty and breathless.
If you are a fan of puzzles, or if you’re just looking for something to make the pages flip, you might try reading this book. And once you’ve finished, you’ll probably want to jump right into the rest of the series.
So, what are you waiting for? And it just so happens—the perfect time to grab a copy of The Inheritance Games and start cracking the case!