The Grandest Game

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.