The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Brothers Hawthorne is the fourth instalment in Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ bestselling The Inheritance Games series. Fans of the series will be delighted to see it continuing, considering that Barnes wrapped up enough of the story in the third novel to justify leaving it as a trilogy. Most of the main protagonists are back but this time, we view the story through the eyes of Grayson and Jameson Hawthorne, rather than Avery Grambs. While the brothers appear together at both the novel’s beginning and conclusion, most of the book is spent alternating between the two as they carry out very different, and very personal, missions.

Grayson has received word that his half-sisters – who do not know about his existence and have never met him – are in trouble. He initially inserts himself into their world as a stranger, determined to help them while maintaining emotional distance. This soon falls by the wayside however when Grayson begins to both get to know his sisters in real life and realises the imminent danger they may be in.

Meanwhile, Jameson and Avery have travelled to London where they are sent a letter by Jameson’s long-lost father. Rather than the emotional and heartwarming reunion Jameson may have been hoping for, his father offers him an opportunity for intrigue and danger. The goal is to infiltrate London’s most exclusive and secretive member’s club and win back the family estate that has been lost to gambling. Suspicious of his father’s motives but unable to resist the invitation, Jameson and Avery set about ingratiating themselves to the members of the Devil’s Mercy and find themselves drawn into a game that will reveal just how far Jameson is willing to go to win.

The Brothers Hawthorne is a fun and reasonably low stakes romp in the world of The Inheritance Games. It is not until near the end of the novel that Barnes reveals where it sits in the series timeline. We learn that the events of The Brothers Hawthorne take place after the end of the story proper of The Final Gambit, the third instalment in the series, but before the epilogue. The Brothers Hawthorne sits slightly apart from the other books and could easily be read as a stand alone novel, although it does reveal major spoilers for the rest of the series. Although not as critical to the events of the series as its predecessors, The Brothers Hawthorne continues to flesh out the characters of the four Hawthorne brothers and provides several directions in which Barnes could take the story moving forward.

Themes: Mystery, Thriller, Romance, Adventure, Brothers, Family.

Rose Tabeni