The Grandest Game

I wasn't the biggest fan of how Barnes ended the original Inheritance Games series, but I feel like this spin off is one worth keeping an eye on.

The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is a YA mystery novel set in the same world as her previous series, The Inheritance Games. Seven tickets. An island of dreams. The chance of a lifetime. Welcome to the Grandest Game, an annual competition run by billionaire Avery Grambs and the four infamous Hawthorne brothers, whose family fortune she inherited. Designed to give anyone a shot at fame and fortune, this year’s game requires one of seven golden tickets to enter. With millions on the line, those seven players will do whatever it takes to win. Some of the players are in it for the money. Some for power. Some for reasons all their own. Every single one of them has secrets. Amidst it all is Grayson Hawthorne, tasked with a vital role in this year’s game. But as tensions rise and the mind-bending challenges push the players to their limits—physically, mentally, and emotionally—it soon becomes clear that not everyone is playing by the rules.

Initially I was hesitant that I wasn't going to love this novel, but boy was I proven wrong. Barnes rejuvenates the original series with a new set of characters and a new set of challenges, while also paying homage to the original series. Which was a nice touch that I thank Barnes completely for.

However, my main qualm with this book was the dizzying array of main characters. Instead of sticking to one protagonist, Barnes instead presents the reader with SEVEN. And given how similar they were, I found it a little too hard to keep all their names and personalities straight in my head. Not to mention, Barnes made a point to make the OLD characters the star of the novel, instead of the new and improved ones. Which really defeated the purpose of this being a spin off series.

Regardless, this was a solid read. Not my favorite of the year, but still a good one. It kept me guessing about who was going to win. Overall, if you like The Inheritance Games, you'll like this one too.

The Grandest Game came as an unexpectedly welcome side quest into the world of puzzles and intrigue that Jennifer Lynn Barnes created with the Inheritance series. There have been so many extra characters brought to life in the Inheritance books with stories and mysteries of their own to explore, and with this book, we get to focus on them. In this companion series, the focus is on Grayson’s half-sisters, Savannah, and Gigi. Jameson’s competitor, Rohan, and the mysterious Lyra Kane who believes her father’s suicide is because of the Hawthorne family.
Avery and Jameson’s dream of creating a puzzle competition, The Grandest Game, is in its second year of fruition. Avery hand-picks some of the contestants and public clues lead to wild cards as the other contestants. However, with powerful people able to pull strings, the wild cards may have more connections to the Hawthorne family and nefarious purposes than they could have planned for.
The puzzles, interactions between players, and hints of danger on the island make for a compelling read. The plot is intricate enough it is best read when you have large chunks of time to devote. This is one of those books with room to read multiple times and likely still find aspects you missed. The puzzles the characters solve are intricate and worthy of any break-out room mixed with the nearly limitless wealth that Avery can use to engineer the game and the creativity of an author who can make anything seem plausible.
I look forward to the upcoming books to continue the intriguing world of Avery Grambs and the Hawthorne brothers. There are so many intrigues it is hard to guess what might happen next.

The Grandest Game is the newest installment in a book series from Jennifer Lynn Barnes that gets you caught up in puzzles, games, danger, romance, riches, and, of course, the Hawthrone brothers. This installment has seven tickets, an inland of dreams, and the chance of a lifetime. I liked that each person brought their own set of skills to this second installment of the grandest game. The book, told from multiple points of view, gives us a glimpse at what motivates each player to be in the game. I appreciate books that make you think and don't just feed you the answers immediately so you can figure out the clues and the characters. The addition of one of the hawthrones being a participant in the game, and they say he knows nothing about how the game is set up, though he was born to play these games, being a hawthrone and all. The Grandest Games moves along quickly, just like the previous books in The Inheritance game, but the brothers take a back seat, and Avery Grambs is the one running this game.