A book you won't want to put down for even a second. Jennifer Lynn Barnes takes us on one last, edge of your seat, adventure in this eye-opening final installment to the Inheritance Games series.
From the blurb;
'One last game.
'Against all odds, Avery has survived nearly a year of secrets, schemes and love lost and found at Hawthorne House. She's weeks away from fulfilling the terms of Tobias Hawthorne's will and inheriting his billions.
'One more player.
'Avery thinks she knows all the family secrets, but when a familiar face arrives with shocking news and a plea for help, it's clear there is one last puzzle to solve.
'One final twist.
'Soon, Avery and the Hawthorne brothers are drawn into a last deadly game against an unknown and powerful opponent.'
The power of The Final Gambit comes not from the story itself, or the growth experienced by each of the main characters shown throughout the novel, nor from the solidifying romance between Avery and her Hawthorne boy, but, as with all the Inheritance Games books, from the questions and puzzles that fuel this story along.
Barnes has proven herself to be an expert at writing puzzles into her stories in this captivating series. The kind of puzzles we, as readers, must know the answers to before we can possibly bare to put her books down. While the story-line itself remains simple enough, the characters making no great change in their attributes as to be astonishingly surprising to anyone who has enjoyed the books up to this point, it is the mystery that lies under their feet, the story-thread they are all chasing, that keeps us turning the pages.
The Final Gambit squarely brings Avery's arc to an end, though leaves us sufficiently fulfilled with just enough room left to make us crave a bit more of this world, it is a fitting final game for these main characters to play.
The fast paced nature of this story, complimented by it's short chapters and firm grasp of the important returning cast of characters, ensures that it is possible to gobble this book down whole in a matter of hours without feeling like you missed any key elements. Barnes gifts her readers with a sensation of wonder, and also of pride, as we fight to solve the puzzles laid out before us in step with Avery and her Hawthorne accomplices. While the twists and turns of this story may take us off guard, Avery's firm sense of self, fought for and painstakingly developed in the prior two books, keeps the reader, and our characters, grounded through each sudden and jarring course change.
The lavish world in which Barnes imagines the super rich live is enticing till the end, offering us a glimpse into all the things many long to have or experience, and all the good, and bad, that that kind of wealth can bring and do to the world.
The end of this novel see's Avery do something with that power that, for many readers out there, is the shinning light of what the wealthy should be doing. This novel is a statement to all the rich and powerful within the real world. A message to the youth of the day. A line drawn in the sand, as Barnes crunches the numbers and shines a light on the greed of capitalist culture and all those who dwell within the riches that abound them.
A fantastic end to a breath taking series, we give The Final Gambit Five Stars.
ISBN - 978-0-241-57363-1 Cover Price - £7.99 eBook Available First published in the USA by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group 2022