She came from nothing.
Avery has a plan: keep her head down and work hard for a better future.
Then an eccentric billionaire dies, leaving her almost his entire fortune. And no one, least of all Avery, knows why.

They had everything.
Now she must move into the mansion she’s inherited.
It’s filled with secrets and codes, and the old man’s surviving relatives –
a family hell-bent on discovering why Avery got ‘their’ money.

Now there’s only one rule: winner takes all.
Soon she is caught in a deadly game that everyone in this strange family is playing.
But just how far will they go to keep their fortune?

This book was provided by the author as part of a book tour with The Write Reads. Thank you!

Trigger Warning: Physical and emotional abuse (Avery’s sister Libby receives a black eye from her boyfriend) both past and present, alcohol consumption, mentions of stalking

“…Hawthorne loves a good puzzle as much as he loves a good whiskey. And he loves his whiskey.”

Avery Grimes is your typical teenager. She studies hard and works hard, all with the aim of giving herself and her half sister a better life. So what if she has to sometimes sleep in her car because her sister’s boyfriend is being a jerk again? Avery knows that one day things will be better.

Avery’s “one day” happens sooner than expected. A well tailored, handsome young man comes to Avery’s school, informing her that he comes on behest of his family and she is wanted in Texas for the reading of a will. Avery doesn’t know any one in Texas, least of all any one who would be naming her in a will…

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is the first book in the series with the same title. Much like the acclaimed movie Knives Out (great movie, btw), it centers on a ridiculously rich family and the patriarch’s Last Will and Testament.

The Inheritance Games is a tense, puzzle filled, nail biter of a story. Everyone seems to have a hidden agenda of some kind. With nearly every person holding on to one secret or another, Avery (and the reader) have a hard time knowing who to trust. Even Mr. Hawthorne himself though he’s dead. The puzzles he’s left behind seem to point at something but no one is sure of what.

I deeply enjoyed reading The Inheritance Games. Because of how it is written, the reader goes along with Avery as she tries to unravel the clues and puzzles left behind. We learn the answers as she figures them out – and she is very good at figuring puzzles out.

I wasn’t too fond of the love triangle Barnes introduced between Avery and two of the Hawthorne grandsons. Such a thing seems common in many YA books, so much so as to have become a kind of trope. However since it was such a small part of the overall plot and didn’t really figure in to the story, it was also easy to overlook and ignore.

On the whole I quite enjoyed this book. Not everything was tied up neatly at the end, leaving it open for the next book in the series. It is something I am eagerly looking forward to and will likely review it here given the chance.