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The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games Book 3)
OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD OF THE #1 BESTSELLING SERIES! Avery’s fortune, life, and loves are on the line in the game that everyone will be talking about. To inherit billions, all Avery Kylie Grambs has to do is survive…
- Release Date
- 2022
- Length
- 351 pages
- Publisher
- Hachette UK
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Our Review
About the book
The third book in the Inheritance Games series finds Avery Grambs close to officially claiming the Hawthorne fortune when a mysterious stranger arrives with connections to the family’s past. With danger closing in, Avery and the Hawthorne brothers must solve one last set of puzzles that reach back to the late Tobias Hawthorne’s secrets.
Our review
Barnes wraps up Avery’s original trilogy with more riddles, more danger and a love triangle finally forced to resolve.
The puzzle-box pleasures are intact. Barnes still loves a hidden passage, a coded clue and a family secret tucked inside another family secret, and the book moves at a sprint. Avery has grown into a more confident lead, and her bond with the Hawthorne brothers, particularly the way each one handles grief and pressure differently, gives the story emotional texture. Fans who’ve followed the romance will get the closure they’ve been waiting for.
The mystery is weaker this time. The central threat arrives in a rush and the explanations in the final chapters feel crowded, as if two books’ worth of revelations were folded into one. Some of the riddles are clever, but others seem designed mainly to keep characters running. And the brothers, apart from the two romantic leads, fade into the background. It’s a satisfying finish for devoted readers, if not the series’ best puzzle.
What we loved
- Clever riddles and hidden-room set pieces
- Avery’s growth into a confident heroine
- Closure on the long-running love triangle
Keep in mind
- An overstuffed final act with rushed explanations
- Secondary Hawthorne brothers get less to do
Read it if you like
Readers of One of Us Is Lying, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, or fans of Knives Out.
The verdict
A fun, fast conclusion for fans who’ve come this far, though the mystery strains under its many reveals.
