The Same Backward As Forward, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

One of these stories you've read before. One of these stories will reveal a truth the first story wasn't ready to acknowledge. In a world with so many puzzles are you prepared for some emotional missing pieces? Jennifer Lynn Barnes is finally ready to fill in a blank that has chased us through her The Inheritance Games series, but are you ready to hear the answers?

From the first blurb;

'She's running from her past.

'Hannah Rooney is good at being invisible. At twenty, she keeps her head down and avoids the dealings of her criminal family. Hannah is biding her time in nursing school as she waits for her beloved sister, Kaylie, to turn eighteen so they can both start a new life far, far, away.

'He steals her future.

'But when a tragic fire leaves Kaylie and two others dead, Hannah is enlisted to help save the only survivor, the rich young outsider responsible for the blaze - Tobias Hawthorne II. He's arrogant. He's impossible. He dosn't deserve her mercy.

'Now they are bound together.

'But Toby has amnesia - and no memory of what he's done or why. There is only Hannah.

'He is the last person that she should ever develop feelings for. But sometimes love isn't a choice...

'Some love stories are meant to be.

'Some never get their happily ever after.'

From the second blurb;

'He is a puzzle to be solved.

'He dosn't know his own name. He dosn't know where he came from. And he has no idea why the angel who saved him looks at him like she wishes he were dead.

'She is his answer.

'She is the first thing he ever remembers seeing, and he is the object of her loathing. She hates him, and he is fascinated by her. A mystery to unlock.

'Both are haunted by the past.

'But as deeper feelings for the woman he calls Hannah the Same Bckwards as Forward begin to surface, so do fragments of memories... and the dangerous realities of his past that, together, they cannot escape.

'Some love stories are meant to be.

'Some never get their happily ever after.'

I love a clever book. The Same Backward As Forward is a flip over book, after reading the first story the book is turned on it's head to allow you to read the second, and in doing so switches your perspective entierly.

While Hnnah's story was previously published as a novella in the story collection Games Untold, Toby's story is a new addition, and the missing piece to a puzzle we have pondered at since the very first installment in The Inheritance Games series.

Filled with passion, budding love and insight, The Same Backward As Forward will leave many readers both satisifed and emotionally ruined. A short read, Toby's tale can be enjoyed in one sitting, keeping readers hooked from begining to end as an old puzzle is finally put to rest only to open a whole new set of questions and introduce readers to another game.

We Give The Same Backward As Forward Four Stars. [One star has been removed for the fact that we already read half the book in Games Untold]

First published in the USA by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group Inc. and in Great Britain by Penguine Books 2025.

ISBN - 978-0-241-77221-8

Hard Back Cover Price - £16.99