Rating: ★★★★☆
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is a thrilling mystery that keeps readers guessing until the very last page. Avery Grambs is a girl who works hard to get good grades and graduate peacefully. Everything changes one day when she is called to the principal’s office and learns that the billionaire Tobias Hawthorne has left her his entire fortune. Stranger still is that they’ve never met. It is the start of a new beginning for her as she moves into the Hawthorne House: a mansion full of secret passages, riddles and codes. As she races to solve the riddles and find out the reason for her inheritance, she soon realizes that the mansion is a maze with no easy escape. Thrust into a complex game with the four Hawthorne brothers, each with a mystery of their own, Avery must figure out who she can trust while uncovering the clues that tie her to the Hawthorne family’s past.
As I tried to connect every clue, each new twist made the book impossible to put down. I kept reading it until the end, and I was shocked by the connections I didn’t see coming. Personally, I sometimes felt frustrated with Avery because she constantly questioned her own worth– yet that part of her character also made the story feel more real. Overall, the book delivered suspense and endless surprises.
If you enjoy puzzles, plot twists, mystery and stories that keep you thinking long after you finish reading, The Inheritance Games is definitely worth picking up. I’m looking forward to discovering the surprises the next books in the series bring.
