Inheritance Games recap

Avery Kylie Grambs, a Connecticut teenager scraping by on diner shifts and scholarship plans, is summoned to Texas for the reading of a billionaire's will and learns that Tobias Hawthorne, a man she never met, has left her almost his entire fortune. His two daughters and his four grandsons get almost nothing, and Avery must live in the family's puzzle-box mansion for a year to keep it. Certain that his grandfather never acted without a reason, Jameson Hawthorne enlists her to work out why she was chosen, and the trail runs through the house's hidden passages and the family's buried history: the death of a girl both Jameson and Grayson loved, and the fire that supposedly killed the old man's only son. Someone wants Avery dead. She is shot at on the grounds and the wing where she sleeps is set alight, and the attacks turn out to have been arranged by the brothers' mother, Skye, through Libby's ex-boyfriend, who is killed in the attempt. Avery ends the book knowing that Toby Hawthorne is alive, and that he is the old man she has been playing chess with all along.

Avery Kylie Grambs is a high school student in Connecticut with a talent for mathematics and no safety net. Her mother died two years ago, her father surfaces only when he needs something, and she and her older half-sister Libby scrape by on diner wages. Avery sleeps in her car on the nights Libby's boyfriend Drake makes the apartment intolerable, keeps to a strict budget, and pins everything on graduating early and winning scholarships. Her closest friend is Maxine Liu, whose parents monitor her phone. Every morning before school Avery plays chess in the park with an old homeless man called Harry, bringing him the breakfast he will accept and offering money he will not, and losing to him every time. She knows nothing at all about a family named Hawthorne.

A polished stranger named Grayson Hawthorne turns up at Avery's school to warn her away from his family, which is the first she has heard of them. A law firm then flies her and Libby to Texas for the reading of the will of Tobias Hawthorne, a self-made billionaire she has never met. The reading takes place at Hawthorne House, an enormous mansion the old man spent decades extending into a warren of wings, passages, and hidden rooms. His daughters, the controlled Zara and the theatrical Skye, and his four grandsons expect to inherit; instead they receive token bequests, and nearly the entire fortune goes to Avery. The conditions are that she live in Hawthorne House for a year and that the family keep the right to live there with her. Libby comes along as her guardian. Avery acquires a lawyer, Alisa Ortega, a head of security, Oren, and four hostile Hawthorne brothers: Nash, Grayson, Jameson, and Xander, all of them raised on the puzzles their grandfather set them every Saturday of their childhood.

Avery moves into Hawthorne House under guard while the press camps at the gates and the country decides she is a fraud or a gold digger. The family treats her as a problem to be solved or removed: Zara looks for grounds to break the will, Skye works on her sons, and the staff keep their distance. Jameson is the exception. He is convinced that his grandfather never did anything without a reason, that Avery is the last game the old man ever built, and that the two of them should play it together, and he draws her into hunting for the answer through the house's hidden passages. Xander offers cheerful help, Nash watches out for Libby and Avery both, and Grayson keeps his distance while making plain that he blames her for what his family has lost. Avery begins to wonder whether the answer lies in her own past, and remembers her mother once telling her she had a secret about the day Avery was born. Anonymous threats start to arrive.

Following the clues left for them, Jameson and Avery uncover the family's fault lines. Both Jameson and Grayson had been involved with Emily Laughlin, the granddaughter of the couple who run the house, and her death about a year ago drove the brothers apart, each certain he had caused it. Emily's sister Rebecca is still living with the loss. Avery, meanwhile, finds evidence that Tobias Hawthorne knew a great deal about her long before he died, which convinces her the choice was deliberate rather than random. The danger stops being theoretical when a shot is fired at her on the grounds. Oren tightens security and treats everyone with access to the estate as a suspect. Avery and Jameson grow closer as they play, and Grayson pulls further away.

The clue trail leads into the part of the family's history nobody will discuss: Tobias Hawthorne's son Toby, who died roughly twenty years ago in a fire on the family's private island that also killed several of his friends. The more Avery learns about Toby, the more her benefactor's arrangements look like a message rather than a whim. Zara's legal challenge advances, Skye keeps circling her sons and Avery alike, and Libby's former boyfriend Drake turns up in Texas. In public Avery is coached and managed by Alisa; inside the house she and the brothers work the puzzle. She becomes convinced that the reason she was chosen is tied to her mother, and that her mother's secret and the Hawthorne family are the same story.

Someone sets fire to the wing where Avery sleeps and she barely gets out. Oren's investigation makes it plain that whoever wants her dead has access to the house, so the family's whereabouts matter more than their manners. Avery refuses to leave: walking away would forfeit the inheritance and end any chance of an answer. The brothers close ranks around her, Grayson included despite himself, and the clues Tobias Hawthorne planted begin to fit together into a single trail pointing at his supposedly dead son.

The trail leads out of the house and into the twenty-year-old story of the island fire, where the version the family has always told stops matching the records Tobias Hawthorne kept for himself. Avery also finds the link she has been chasing between the Hawthornes and her own mother, and understands that the old man's choice of her was a decision made years in advance rather than an act of charity. The attacks escalate at the same time, and Oren narrows the danger to someone with a direct interest in returning the fortune to the Hawthorne family.

The attempts on Avery's life prove to have been arranged by Skye Hawthorne, who recruited Libby's former boyfriend Drake for the work, believing that Avery's death would send the fortune back to her sons. Drake corners Avery inside the house and Oren kills him; Skye is arrested. Avery then finishes her benefactor's trail and confirms that Toby Hawthorne survived the island fire and has been living unfound for twenty years. Shown a picture of the missing man, she recognizes Harry, the homeless chess player from her own neighborhood, and understands that she has spent months sitting across a board from Tobias Hawthorne's son. Why she was chosen is still unanswered, and the connection runs through her dead mother. Avery commits to staying out the year at Hawthorne House and finishing the game, with Jameson beside her, Grayson deliberately apart, Nash looking after Libby, and the family still divided over her.

The attempts on Avery's life were arranged by Skye Hawthorne, who recruited Libby's former boyfriend Drake in the belief that Avery's death would return the fortune to her sons. Drake corners Avery inside the house and Oren kills him; Skye is taken into custody. With that settled, Avery finishes the trail her benefactor left and confirms that Toby Hawthorne survived the fire on the family's island and has lived unfound ever since. Looking at a picture of the missing man, she recognizes him: Harry, the homeless chess player she has faced across a board every morning for months, is Tobias Hawthorne's son. Why she was chosen is still unanswered, and the connection appears to run through her dead mother and the secret her mother said she was keeping about the day Avery was born. Avery decides to stay at Hawthorne House for the rest of the year and to play the game out. Jameson is her partner in it and something more; Grayson holds himself at a deliberate distance; Nash has attached himself to Libby's welfare; Xander is simply glad she is staying. Zara's challenge to the will has not dislodged her, but the family is nowhere near reconciled, and the questions of where Toby is and why Avery was chosen are both wide open.