The Inheritance Games (2020) The Hawthorne Legacy (2021) The Final Gambit (2022) spin-off: The Brothers Hawthorne (2023) The Grandest Game (2025)
⚡ Pace: fast · 🎭 Emotions: suspenseful, fun · 🚪 Entry threshold: low · ⭐ Why read: clever twists, addictive plot
Avery Grambs has one plan: survive high school, save every dollar, and escape the life that has never once gone her way. Then a billionaire she’s never met dies – and leaves her almost his entire fortune. Overnight, Avery goes from sleeping in her car to owning Hawthorne House: a sprawling mansion full of secret passages, shifting walls, and a family who wants to know why she, of all people, was chosen.
The Hawthorne brothers – brilliant, charming, dangerous in different ways – don’t believe in coincidences. Each of them has his own theory, his own agenda, and a personal riddle carved into the heart of the estate. The old man adored games and puzzles. To claim her inheritance, Avery must play by his rules: cracking codes, decoding clues, and surviving a house where every portrait seems to watch her move.
But money this big creates enemies. The media circles. The family plots. And somewhere in the maze of Hawthorne secrets lies the answer that could cost Avery everything: who she really is to them… and why a dead man wanted her to win. Is she a pawn – or the one player no one saw coming?
“The Inheritance Games” launches a five-book thriller series built on logic, danger, and the adrenaline of discovery. It turns the classic Cinderella fantasy into something sharper: a survival story with glittering stakes and traps behind every locked door. Readers step into a world where trust is a luxury, love is a risk, and the next clue might shatter everything you think you know. If you’re ready to play, the game has already begun.
📚 Did you know 📖
The debut novel became an instant global hit – often described as “a mix of Agatha Christie mysteries and Knives Out.”
Barnes received a massive advance for the trilogy even before the first book’s release – that’s how strongly publishers believed in it.
In 2020, Amazon Studios snapped up the rights for a TV series adaptation.
The novel landed on the New York Times Bestseller List and stayed there for over a year.
Legend has it: Barnes holds a PhD in psychology and cognitive science, and she often draws on this expertise to craft her characters and intricate puzzles.