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Jennifer Lynn Barnes: The Brother's Hawthorne - The Inheritance Games Book 4

 I've been loving this series, so I was very excited when I got to roll for mystery books and this is what I got. I was definitely eager to continue the series.

Jameson has found a secret in Prague, but not one he's willing to let Avery in on just yet. As they're in London, Jamison is approached by his father, a British nobleman who has a request: join the mysterious, underground club: The Devil's Mercy, and win back his ancestral home. Do Avery and Jameson have what it takes to beat the odds? Can they get into the Most Dangerous Game?

Meanwhile, Grayson finds himself in Phoenix, Arizona trying to break his half sister, Gigi out of prison. Once there, he finds his father's real family in deep financial trouble, and on the brink of ruin. Unable to leave the situation alone, guided by Gigi's digging into her father's whereabouts, Grayson finds himself tangled up in a complicated family battle. Can he protect his sister's while also staying loyal to his Hawthorne half?

In all... this book wasn't as good as the others. It was good, don't get me wrong, but I found it slower than the other books. I also found 85% of Jameson and Avery's story boring, while I really wanted to get into Grayson's story much more. It felt more compelling to me.

I think the biggest issue with the book was that Barnes was trying to do too much. Grayson's story would have been really good on its own. Jameson's and Avery's story might have been better on their own. Combined? The whole book felt disjointed. I was a little frustrated at that. I wonder if Barnes felt that having an Inheritance Games novel without Avery would feel disingenuous to the series? The stakes in Grayson's side of the story felt more real, serious, and with ramifications. The Devil's Mercy stuff felt like a frivolity - a reminder that Jameson and Avery are just very rich kids. It wasn't until the end, when they're actually in the game that I even really felt invested in what Jameson and Avery were doing.

I did like the suspense of the whole story. I loved the development we see in Grayson's character, as he steps out of being a side character, and takes a main character role in this story. I felt that Barnes has done a really good job of giving all of the characters their own arcs. Even Eve, the villain, seems to have her own arc. So while Gray has been a minor character in other books, him suddenly becoming the main point of view character did not feel out of place. And same with Jameson. This book was less about Avery (and I think that's implied in the title, so that didn't bother me), and more about exploring who these two brothers are. For that, I think the story itself was successful.

In all, this was a little bit of a letdown after the main trilogy, but still a good book. I rated it: ⭐⭐⭐⭐



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