The Final Gambit Book Review

IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! ❤️❤️ ***Spoilers (marked)***

The Final Gambit

The Inheritance Games #3

By: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

★★★★★

To inherit billions, all Avery Kylie Grambs has to do is survive a few more weeks living in Hawthorne House. The paparazzi are dogging her every step. Financial pressures are building. Danger is a fact of life. And the only thing getting Avery through it all is the Hawthorne brothers. Her life is intertwined with theirs. She knows their secrets, and they know her.

But as the clock ticks down to the moment when Avery will become the richest teenager on the planet, trouble arrives in the form of a visitor who needs her help—and whose presence in Hawthorne House could change everything. It soon becomes clear that there is one last puzzle to solve, and Avery and the Hawthorne brothers are drawn into a dangerous game against an unknown and powerful player.

Secrets upon secrets. Riddles upon riddles. In this game, there are hearts and lives at stake—and there is nothing more Hawthorne than winning.

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One sentence Review:

Showstopping finale and I absolutely LOVED it, everyone needs to read this series it's truly amazing!!! 😍😍

Spoiler-Free Review:

This series is so special to me because my bestie Marie and I started it back when the first book came out and have loved the books and characters year by year and now it's finally complete and my hurt hearts 💔😞

I was really worried starting TFG because I skimmed some non-spoiler reviews and the general consensus seemed to be very meh, a lot of people were disappointed. I'm kind of confused why? Because as you can see by the 5 star rating I absolutely adored it. It's my favourite in the series.

Series Ranking:

1. The Final Gambit 🥳🎉🙌

2. The Hawthorne Legacy

3. The Inheritance Games

The final installment of The Inheritance Games was one of my most anticipated releases this year and it did not disappoint.

The plot was outstandingly twist-turny. 😵‍💫

The romance was lip smackingly good. 💄💋

The character development was chef's kiss. 😽

This series is amazing, it's for anyone and everyone. Fast-paced mystery with great characters and a thorough sprinkle of romance. JUST READ IT!!!

🚨Spoiler Review!🚨 PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!

Let's start off with the PLOT. The twists and turns in TFG were even better than in THL.

"Traps upon traps, riddles upon riddles"

Every step of the mystery just deepened the delicious plot and I was soooo engaged. I would have finished it in a day if I wasn't so busy 😒😒 (ahem saffity). All the clues were so cool like the steamer and the pool tile and broo the empty tomb in the altar?! Like that was jawdropping amazing. I was so shocked and Tobias Hawthorne really revealed himself to be a vicious morally grey genius type person.

I was honestly pretty mad at him. Like he couldn't leave a letter that clearly told everyone the danger they were in and the purpose of everything?? No, he had to make a complex game thingy to find "Don't Trust Anyone". That pissed me off, all that for those 3 words to overanalyse. The whole Blake family plot line was so cool and interesting I actually loved it, it was just hard to keep track of everyone in a mental family tree.

Now I need to talk about the CHARACTERS and the ROMANCE because oh my god, I did NOT expect TFG to hurt so much 😭💔 Like my heart was aching for so many characters.

Let's start off with Queen Avery 🙇‍♀️👑 She was such a girlboss in TFG. Oh my god I just totally fell in love with her even more. Also the way she was quickly solving the riddles even faster than the og Hawthornes!! The moment where she threw dead Tobias Hawthorne under the bus, I was so proud!!

I threw Tobias Hawthorne under the bus. Thoroughly and without mercy. Dead men didn’t get to be picky about their reputations, and that went double for dead men who’d used me the way he had.

All hail the queen 👏🙌 Also love that Avery realised Eve was a rat from the very start. AND OH MY GOD THE CHESS GAMES. She was soooo frickin smart and I was in awe. Because she really beat a Hawthorne and could have beat Eve too. Like she's actually an ICON. 🤩

Now on to Jameson Winchester Hawthorne 🥵🔥🌶️Just some context to begin with, I was a Gravery shipper. Now Avery ended up with Jameson BUT I wasn't mad about it! I actually transferred to team Javery (don't worry I still love Grayson to pieces) but Javery was just undeniable amazing! This quote just made my heart clench and I started fake crying and squealing 😍😍

“I love you. I would die to protect you. I would make you hate me to keep you safe because damn it, Avery—some things are too precious to gamble.”

THIS QUOTE!! 😩😩😩 Jameson you had no right to make me fall so hard like that. The "some things are too precious to gamble" will live rent free in my brain forevermore. 🤧 Here are some more yummy quotes from Jameson who truly proved himself in TFG.

“The only person I trust with all that I am and all that could be, Heiress, is you.”

"But mostly, I can't hate him, Avery Kylie Grambs, because he brought me you."

Also when my poor Jamey Wamey was insecure and wanted the best for Avery and Avery just belted out this MASTERPIECE SPEECH OF LOVE I fell in love with both of them even more!

"Better is being my friend and my partner and realizing that you don't get to make decisions for me. Better is the way you make me see myself as a person who's capable of anything. I would jump out of a plane with you, Jameson, snowboard down the side of a volcano with you, bet everything that I have on you--on us, against the world. You don't get to run off and take risks and expect me to stay behind in a gilded cage of your making. That isn't who you are, and it's not what I want."

Basically, Javery had my heart and I was swooning throughout.

ALSO ARE WE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT AVERY WAKING UP NEXT TO HIM AFTER HER BIRTHDAY?!?! And the way Jameson made her birthday perfect and they just went everywhere (hot air balloon, picnic) and did everything 🥰😻

Now onto my love, my heart, my husband, the one and only Grayson Davenport Hawthorne. 🥵🔥😩 His character made me HURT and ACHE and SOB (internally) and DIE and just BREAK. I was mad at him when he was all "Evie Evie" BUT I get it, he was hurting and I will never forgive JLB for putting my husband through all this pain.

“I wanted Eve to be different,” Grayson told me. “I wanted her to be you.” “Don’t say that,” I whispered. He looked at me one last time. “There are so many things that I will never say.”

THIS HURTTTTT.

"You hated the idea of me.” “But not you. Never you.”

THE PAINNNNNN 😭😭😭😭

“Sometimes you have an idea of a person — about who they are, about what you'd be like together. But sometimes that's all that it is: an idea. And for so long, I have been afraid that I loved the idea of Emily more than I will ever be capable of loving anyone real." He looked at me like the act of doing so was painful and sweet. “It was never just the idea of you, Avery.”

BRO I WAS BREAKINGGGG FOR MY MAN GRAYSON 💔💔

And then in the short story at the end of the book One Hawthorne Night, I was laughing through TEARS because of these lines:

"Avery." Her name escaped Grayson's lips the second she stepped into the room. Seeing her still did something to him. Perhaps it always would.

DO YOU SEE THIS?!?! MY GRAYSON IS HEARTBROKEN 🤧

"She means best," Grayson corrected, because at least when he was correcting Thea, he wasn't too caught up in things that might — or might not — have been different, if he had been different.

THE REGRET THE PAIN THE SADNESS 💔😭

This whole book really made me feel teary-eyed at Grayson's pain. BUT, the short story also made me DIE because omfg Grayson singing Shake it Off in leather pants 🥵🤣

Now the rat aka Eve. If you sympathise with Eve, I'm sorry but we will never be friends. Because that girl is a stinking rat. I hated her at the end of THL. Then I hated her even more when she looked like Emily. And bro I was so RELIEVED when she was evil because finally, everyone will hate her guts too. And how dare she raise a gun to queen Avery?!?!

Enough about that digusting girl. On to Toby. Everytime he's mentioned, my heart hurts because "Hannah same backwards as forwards" 😭😭 Their love story was tragically beautiful. It hurts that he still feels the pain. I love him obviously because he sees Avery as a daughter.When they saw each other again and he said "horrible girl" 🥰 And the way he fucked over Tobias Hawthorne was amazing. HE DID NOT DESERVE THAT ENDING 🤧🤧 I hope he murders Vincent and the whole mf Blake family including Eve the rat even though she's his "daughter" 🤮 and gets the hell out of there.

Okay now Xander. He also made me hurt.

Xander smiled, and something about it made me want to cry. “Do you think it’s okay,” he said, sounding younger than I’d ever heard him, “that I loved playing those Saturday morning games? Loved growing up here? Loved the great and terrible Tobias Hawthorne?”

🤧

Also him meeting Isaiah and saying this made me want to cry 😩

"You're saying that you wanted me?" "Still do."

I was happy for him at the end when he went to work with his father. ALSO TOTALLY SHIP HIM AND MAX!!!

I felt sooo bad for Rebecca because everyone treats that girl like shit. When Emily was alive and now that Emily's dead too. I hate Emily so much. Rebecca deserves to outshine that girl and live her life. Her mother Mallory was so horrible, she even liked Eve the rat more than her own DAUGHTER. Rebecca deserves so much more. I'm so happy she has Thea though. I didn't really liked Thea in TIG and THL but this book made me like her. This quote lol 😅

“I don't do vulnerable," Thea retorted. "It clashes with my bitch aesthetic.”

Last person: Nash. Obviously I've loved him ever since that "good girl" because 🥵🥵 but NOW I love love loveee him! One, because of how he treats Libby 🥰 and two, because of how he was so protective over Avery and big brothery. Love that <3

"Nash didn't care that I was eighteen, that I owned the House, that I wasn't actually his sister, or that I would put up one hell of a fight if he tried to stop me."

I know a lot of people were disappointed with the ending but honestly I loved it! I think it was very fitting and perfect. Love that Avery is doing that challenge thing. I swear, I see clues everywhere now because of this series.

Overall, I can't believe my journey with the Hawthornes is over 🤧 I did not expect TFG to be such an emotional rollercoaster but I really loved it. This series is a god-tier favourite, every book was awesome. I wouldn't mind if the author treated us to a few more sneek peaks into the Hawthorne world 😉😍

I'LL MISS YOU GRAYSON JAMESON AVERY 🤧🥰🤩 GOODBYE LOVES 💖💖💖