The Inheritance Games – EternityFae

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

My Ratings

Plot – ★★★★☆
Character Development – ★★★★☆
World Building – ★★★☆☆
Editing – ★★★★☆
Enjoyment – ★★★★☆

Summary

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why–or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch–and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes.

Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he’s determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather’s last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.

The Review

Avery is a seventeen-year-old high-school girl. She’s brilliant, sassy and kind, but her life isn’t easy after her mother’s death the year before. She’s either living with her half-sister Libby or sleeping in her car behind the restaurant she waitresses at, dependent on what her sister’s relationship status is with Drake. ‘Off’ she is safe, ‘On’ nobody is safe.

One morning, Avery gets called into the principal’s office to find a young man around her age awaiting her. Greyson Hawthorn is everything you would expect a rich young man to be – well-groomed, assertive, and very sure of himself. Apparently, the family lawyers had been attempting to get hold of Libby for several weeks following his grandfather’s death. She is expected to be at the reading of Tobias Hawthorn’s will. A man she had never met.

Whisked off to the Hawthorn mansion, flying first class, of course, Avery learns that she is now the heiress of a fortune. A forty-five billion dollar plus fortune. Tobias’ family are incensed at the revelation he had disinherited them, and the vultures set about trying to find ways to challenge the will. Avery must spend a year living in her new mansion alongside the Hawthorn family to fulfil the document’s instructions.

Upon moving into her wing of the estate, Avery must learn to navigate the tumultuous relationships the Hawthorns share, all while adapting to a life of paparazzi stalking her every movement, figuring out the reason why she was chosen seemingly at random to inherit, and uncover the truth of the four Hawthorn grandson’s secrets. And dodging attempts on her life. Easy, right?

The Inheritance Games pulls you into a world of mystery and puzzles. It’s less of a ‘how the other side lives‘ showcase of splendour and pomp – even with a 30+ bedroom mansion. The love triangle does not overtake the essence of the story; it falls in line with everything around Avery. She’s been thrown into a world that she has no understanding of and surrounded by people she cannot trust.

The characters are well-rounded and fleshed out, the mansion filled with puzzles that need to be solved, and a tragic secret that keeps you flipping through to learn more. I practically inhaled this book in one sitting – it was 5 am by the time I turned the last page and succumbed to the call of sleep!

I am excited to see where the story goes in book two The Hawthorn Legacy released in September 2021.