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Jennifer Lynn Barnes has created an incredible world in her ‘Inheritance Games’ saga. It has endearing characters with interesting backstories, and enough mystery and intrigue that can keep you on the edge of your seat.
The story, as we know it, though, has unfortunately come to a finish in ‘The Gilded Blade’, the third book in the ‘Grandest Games’ series, and I’m sad to be finished with this story because it is one that I have loved since reading the first book in the original ‘Inheritance Games’ series.
I have a lot of thoughts about the books; I don’t know if I will be able to include them all, but I had to share some of them with you.
First, let me give you a bit of run down on where it all starts.
The Inheritance Games (Where the story starts):
The story starts with ‘The Inheritance Games’, which follows Avery, a young woman just trying to get by after her mum died. Out of nowhere, she inherits a billionaire’s fortune, but there is a twist: she has to live in his house for one year before she can inherit the fortune. Along with his family, who have just been disinherited.
She has to adapt to a new lifestyle in which she has more money than she could ever have imagined having and get used to living in the public eye. Along with the Hawthorn Brothers (the grandchildren of billionaire Tobias Hawthorn), she has to help solve endless mysterious puzzles left behind by him.
There may also be a bit of a blossoming romance between Avery and two of the Hawthorn Brothers, which adds some extra tension to the story.
There are three books in the original series ‘The Inheritance Games’, ‘The Hawthorn Legacy’ and ‘The Final Gambit.’ Following this, there is ‘The Brothers Hawthorn ’, which is both an epilogue to the original series and a prologue to ‘The Grandest Game’ series, and is mainly told from the perspective of two of the Hawthorn Brothers, Jameson and Grayson.
If you want to read through both ‘The Inheritance Games’ and ‘The Grandest Game ’, don’t skip ‘The Brothers Hawthorn’ as it sets up a lot of the story that continues in ‘The Grandest Game’, including storylines and new characters that will feature in the follow-on series.
As for ‘Games Untold ’, which features a series of short stories, I tried to read this while I was waiting for book three of ‘The Grandest Game ’ to come out, and I found that it didn’t add anything new for me, but I also didn’t finish reading it because I got a bit bored. I was kind of disappointed by the first story featured in this book because I thought it might give me some spoilers for a continuation of a particular element of the story, and it fell a bit flat for me. It didn’t give much away, and after that I just didn’t care enough to continue reading the rest.
So I guess it’s up to you if you also want to include this in your TBR if you want to read the whole saga.
The Grandest Game, The Continuation…
‘The Grandest Game’ introduces quite a few new characters to the story, many of whom are competing in a game set up by Avery and Jameson on Hawthorn Island.
Each contestant involved in the game has to solve a series of mysterious puzzles to be eligible to win a prize worth millions of dollars. This series introduces new perspectives from different characters, each with their own intriguing backstories.
I found this series in particular had lots of twists that kept me on the edge of my seat and wanting to read just one more chapter.
There is so much going on in these books in particular that it is honestly hard to describe them. But I loved the grandest game aspect of this series; the solving of the puzzles was really interesting, as well as the dynamic between certain characters, budding romances and mysterious outsiders trying to interfere with the game.
In the last book, we encounter a secret society (there is also a different one introduced in ‘The Brothers Hawthorn’ that is also significant) and long-dead friends and family members (who apparently aren’t dead). Avery gets kidnapped by this mysterious society. So, most of the story centres around finding her and solving the mystery surrounding said secret society, who belongs to it and how they can find them. And ultimately how they can stop them.
The one thing Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ Inheritance Games’ books have in spades is mystery, intrigue and many twists and turns, which you often don’t see coming. Along with the right amount of romance and violence.
I appreciate that these two areas in particular are not overdone and that she is writing appropriately for the target demographic, young adult readers. I find these days that there is a lot of inappropriate content in books for this demographic. So I appreciate when an author isn’t including too much spice or excessive violence in their books for a young demographic.
I also just generally think this is overdone these days, and it doesn’t always add anything to the story in particular, but that’s just my opinion. I like to have a nice and cosy reading experience, and I often feel that too much of this ruins my reading experience for me. But obviously that’s just my personal preference; if this is something you like, that’s totally fine. We all have things we like and things we don’t, and we don’t all have to like the same thing, and that’s okay.
There wasn’t much in these books that made me squeamish other than a couple of elements of violence in particular in the Grandest Game series, but most of it was only briefly mentioned enough that I could just move past it.
I can’t recommend ‘The Inheritance Games’ saga books enough; I think they have great plot and story arcs, with lots to keep you interested and on the edge of your seat.
I would recommend these for more mature (Young Adult) readers, and if a younger person is interested in reading them, I always recommend parents check the books out first, just to make sure you think they are appropriate for them. Only because there are a few small recurring scenes that involve one of the characters (in the Grandest Game series) that could be a bit triggering for some people.
I hope that you enjoyed this book series review. I am gradually getting back into doing book reviews. I can’t say I am going to review every book I read, but it is fun to do occasionally when a book really speaks to me, or I really enjoyed reading it. So maybe expect more in the future when I find a book I really want to talk about.
Until next time, I hope that you have an awesome day.
Erin.
P.S You can find where to purchase Jennifer Lynn Barnes books here.
Disclaimer – This post is not sponsored and doesn’t contain any affiliate links; any links included are for reference only in case you are interested in checking out a mentioned link or purchasing a reviewed product. Check out my full Disclaimers here, including AI use on my blog.
Featured Image: Header photo was taken by me of a stack of books that includes various books from the Inheritance Games saga by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. The image was put together in Adobe Express, including the use of elements from their asset library (Arrows and Text). Font used: Adobe Handwriting from the Adobe Font Library.
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