Book Review: The Grandest Game

If you’ve been following me for a while then you know I’m a big fan of The Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and all things Hawthorne Brothers. I just read The Grandest Game, which came out over the summer and was so happy to be back in this world.

This is the first book that doesn’t center entirely on one of the Hawthorne brothers and/or Avery. In the last Inheritance Games book, Avery announced to the world that she would be giving away some of the billions she inherited by hosting an annual game where participants would solve puzzles like the late Tobias Hawthorne had his grandsons solve all their lives and like Avery had to solve when she was named his heir. The Grandest Game follows 8 participants in the 2nd annual games. Half of the participants were personally invited by Avery and the other half followed clues around the globe to win a wildcard spot. The novel has 3 POVs – Rohan, Gigi, and Lyra. These are all characters we met in The Brothers Hawthorne in some capacity.

Rohan works for the secret society that Jameson and Avery were involved with in The Brothers Hawthorne and wants to win the Grandest Game for the cash needed to take over The Devil’s Mercy. Gigi is Grayson’s half sister and wants to win to prove to herself and everyone else that she can do it and not to underestimate her. Lyra was the mysterious caller who was trying to reach out to Grayson in the previous book and she believes the Hawthornes, or at least Tobias Hawthorne, had something to do with her father’s death. She wants to win for multiple reasons. Her family needs the money, she wants to prove herself, and she wants to solve the riddle of the last words her father said to her.

There are also other participants and it’s unclear if they can be trusted yet or not, because these characters always tend to have ulterior motives.

I loved this book and being immersed back in this world. However, it was a little hard to keep track of everyone and what they were all doing throughout the novel. Without giving too much away, during the game they end up in teams and separated from the others. Sometimes it was hard to remember what each group was up to when I last read a chapter from one of their POVs. So for example if for a few chapters Gigi and her team are in a library looking for clues and then it goes to a chapter with Lyra and she’s in a room with old films playing and then it goes back to a Gigi chapter and I have to remember that she’s in a library not in a room with films etc. I loved all the storylines and the unraveling of the mysteries and the new questions and twists that would arise, but it did take some brain power to keep track of everything.

My favorite characters in this book were Gigi and Lyra and I think Knox is going to be a surprise favorite. Like always, Jennifer Lynn Barnes ended the book with a bit of a twist/cliffhanger. I can’t wait to see what happens next when the next novel comes out next year. In the meantime, I did get Games Untold, which is a book of Hawthorne short stories, and I’m really excited to read that!

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