Book Review | The Inheritance Games

Title: The Inheritance Games (first in series)

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Publisher: Little, Brown Books

Published: 1 September 2020

What if you were given a million dollars? Or a billion dollars? We all dream of it, right? I have never played any lottery in my life, but I still have a plan for when I ever win the lottery. Well, for Avery Kylie Grambs this is no dream, it’s quite literally a reality. It’s also not just a million dollars nor is it a billion dollars. She has been given 46 billion dollars, including all properties, monetary assets, and worldy possessions of Tobias Hawthorne.

There’s one part that doesn’t make sense to Avery or the rest of the Hawthorne family, nobody knows who she is and she has no idea who they or Tobias Hawthorne is.

This is just another puzzle, another game for the four brothers. They all grew up with Tobias who loved games and puzzles more than almost anyone. One last game after he dies and Avery is the missing piece. Or is she?

I was so excited to read this back when I first heard about it this past spring. Totally reminded me of Knives Out. Of course, with Knives Out Marta actually knew Harlan. As the game moves on, the stakes do become higher and Avery has no idea who to trust. I kept going back and forth on who I trusted. All the boys, at least once during my reading of the book, had something to do with trying to have Avery loose the inheritance.

There were a few things that I wished were different. One, can we stop it with the love triangles!? Please I beg you!

I’ve been tired of this trope since Twilight and it still hasn’t aged well! Two, I really wanted Nan (Tobias’s mother-in-law) to be in the story more, especially, after she told Avery about what happened to her husband. I also wished we saw her impression or reaction to Avery being bequeathed this inheritance instead of her great-grandsons. Hopefully, she’ll be a bigger character in book 2, but I doubt it.

Oh yeah! Did anyone else know this was a series? Cause I certainly didn’t! If you read past this point, you are taking your life in your own hands because

When it’s revealed that Avery knows the man in Nan’s locket, Tobias Hawthorne II, and it’s Harry from the park, I was shocked. The man from the beginning that was so inconsequential to be meaningless becomes such the twist at the end. I was truly not expecting that. I will say I did enjoy that scene between Avery and Harry at the beginning. Avery is a girl from the “wrong side of the tracks.” She is literally sleeping in her car the night before she finds out she’s an heiress, but she goes to the park to play chess as a way to give Harry breakfast. Showing someone’s character right from the beginning.

It makes me root for Avery. I want her to win the game and the inheritance, but more than that I want this to mean something for her. I don’t want it to mean something as little as a chance meeting in a diner or because she had the same birthday as a girl who died. There has to be more to Avery’s story than that. Tobias Hawthorne’s mind had to have more of a reason than just simple coincidence.

Basically, I need the next book!