The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
This is another book I needed to read for school. I do love mysteries, so I was looking forward to this one.
Avery has been living with her sister after her mother died, and they do not have a lot of money. Her hope is to graduate high school, win a scholarship, and get out into the real world. Then she finds out that she is the heir to billions of dollars from a man she has never even heard of before. Why?
What would you do if you suddenly inherited over 40 billion dollars? I remember an author telling me how Google mixed him up with someone with the same last name. That other person was a billionaire. I thought that was funny, but he was very concerned and put in a lot of work to get Google to fix the results. I asked him why he was taking this so seriously, and he said that kind of money can put you in danger. He talked about how when you are a billionaire, you need lawyers, security, pretty much a team of people to keep track of you and your money. Everyone wants a piece of you with that much money; people might want to hurt you or simply hound you to beg for that money. He didn’t want anyone coming after him, thinking he had billions of dollars. I never thought about that. I would have thought having that much money would be the best, the most fantastic thing ever. After reading how quickly Avery’s life changed when people found out she had money, I’m okay with being sort of poor.
I would think one would run away and live a secretive life, but Avery learns that she has to live in Hawthorne House for one year to claim her inheritance. This is where four brothers, the grandsons of the billionaire, also happen to live, and they do not like her. Well, to different degrees. The house sounds huge, “…grandfather added at least one new room or wing every year.” That reminded me of the Winchester house. If you don’t know about the Winchester house, look it up! So, Avery has to stay in this house for one year with people who would love to see her leave. All that money awaits you, and you are stuck with the worst roommates ever.
The grandfather was known to give riddles to his grandchildren, so they believe Avery is part of one of those riddles. They want to figure out why she was named in the will. There were many other reviews that I saw that were annoyed by the quote “riddles upon riddles,” and yeah, there were some riddles, but I wouldn’t say it was full of riddles. There was also a lot of talk about the secret passages of the house and the different wings where everyone stayed to the point where I could have used a floor plan.
Final note: I liked the short chapters. I tend to be the type of reader who will only stop between chapters, but these were so short that I kept finding myself saying, ‘I have time for one more chapter’ over and over again.
Four out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 