Inheritance Games characters

Appears from the start

A high school student in Connecticut who lives with her older half-sister and sleeps in her car on the nights their apartment is unbearable. Her mother died two years ago, her father surfaces only when he wants money, and she keeps herself afloat on diner shifts, a strict budget, and a plan built around scholarships and a gift for numbers. Guarded and self-reliant, she is used to counting on nobody and to noticing everything. Her mornings begin with a game of chess in the park against an old man she has never beaten. She has never heard of the Hawthorne family.

Appears from the start

Avery's older half-sister and the only steady adult in her life: a diner worker who bakes elaborate cupcakes, dyes the ends of her hair in bright colors, and takes in strays of every kind. Warm and forgiving to a fault, she is dating a possessive boyfriend whose presence is the reason Avery often sleeps somewhere else.

Appears from the start

An old man living on the street near Avery's usual route, who meets her each morning for a game of chess in the park. He will accept the breakfast she brings but never money, deflects every question about his past, and has never lost to her.

Also known as Max

First appears in chapter 3

Avery's best friend, blunt, loyal, and endlessly entertained by other people's disasters. Her parents monitor her phone and email, so she swears in elaborate substitutions. She is the one person Avery tells everything.

First appears in chapter 8

The second of the four Hawthorne grandsons, raised from childhood as the one who would inherit the family empire and run it. Formal, controlled, and accustomed to being obeyed, he appears at Avery's school before she has any idea who he is, to take her measure and warn her away from his family.

First appears in chapter 12

A self-made Texas billionaire, dead before the story begins, who built a fortune out of nothing and spent decades extending Hawthorne House into a maze of wings, passages, and hidden rooms. He raised his four grandsons on riddles and games set every Saturday morning, and he left a will that gives his own family almost nothing and his fortune to a stranger.

First appears in chapter 12

The young lawyer assigned to Avery by the firm that has represented the Hawthorne family for decades. Precise, ambitious, and relentlessly practical, she treats the inheritance as an estate to be defended and Avery's public image as an asset to be managed.

Also known as John Oren

First appears in chapter 12

Tobias Hawthorne's former head of security, reassigned to Avery the moment the will is read. Blunt, watchful, and unsentimental, he treats every threat as real and expects to be obeyed on anything touching her safety.

First appears in chapter 14

The third Hawthorne grandson, restless and drawn to risk, brought up to treat the world as a series of puzzles with a way to win hidden inside. He is the first to decide that Avery is not an accident but his grandfather's last game, and he wants to play it with her.

Also known as Xander

First appears in chapter 14

The youngest Hawthorne grandson, cheerful, talkative, and forever building elaborate contraptions out of whatever the house contains. He is the easiest of the brothers to like and the quickest to treat Avery as a person rather than a problem.

First appears in chapter 14

The oldest Hawthorne grandson, who left the family's world years ago for odd jobs and long drives and speaks like a man who has spent time on a ranch. He appoints himself peacekeeper between his brothers and takes an immediate protective interest in the newcomers.

First appears in chapter 14

Tobias Hawthorne's younger daughter and the mother of the four brothers, theatrical, charming, and entirely unbothered by other people's boundaries. She named each of her sons after the man she said had fathered him, and she is openly certain the fortune should have been hers.

First appears in chapter 14

Tobias Hawthorne's elder daughter, composed and formidable, married into a wealthy family and long positioned as the one who kept the household in order. She begins looking for a legal route to overturn her father's will within minutes of hearing it read.

First appears in chapter 32

The granddaughter of the couple who run Hawthorne House, quiet and careful, still visibly grieving the older sister she lost the year before. She grew up around the Hawthorne brothers and knows more about their history than she volunteers.

First appears in chapter 40

Tobias Hawthorne's only son, who died roughly twenty years ago in a fire on the family's private island that also killed several of his friends. The household does not speak of him, and the search for what happened to him is treated as closed.

First appears in chapter 45

Rebecca's older sister, who died about a year before Avery arrives. Vivid, admired, and drawn to danger, she was involved with both Grayson and Jameson at the same time, and her death left the two brothers estranged, each privately certain he was to blame.