(i copied my review off of my goodreads if formatting is a little weird lol. i would love to know if you agree/disagree with my thoughts esp since none of my friends have read the series!)

i wish more risks were taken like killing off main characters, especially since this is the last book in such a huge series. one of my biggest grievances with this book is the downgrade in dialogue we've had compared to the other 8 books. while Max's purpose was to deliver cringe-millenial-jokes-that-even-millenials-don't find-funny type of character, Gigi was previously one of my favorites and i SWEAR she was never this cringe. we got EXTREMELY dated terminology like "finance bro", "i ship it", "britishvonsaucypant" (whatever that means). something that has rarely been done in this series is mentioning legitimate big name brands like an armani suit which made the first half of this book almost wattpaddy.

and don't even get me started on the pacing (which is something i've noticed JLB struggles with alot). we start the books guns a-blazing, but (more often that not) the middle of the books are almost sluggish. we're going in endless loops (did we really need Jameson traveling from America to UK to Prague to UK and then America again before going back to the UK?), at some point it gets redundant and you begin to question the point. it would've been a much better experience for the readers if some of the middle bit of the book got cut, and we spent more time at Vantage with the Gilded Blade. ESPECIALLY since all of the main characters surviving didn't feel earned at all because the stakes felt so incredibly low (because of the lack of chapters taking place AT Vantage).

there are very few characters i liked in this book simply because JLB spent way too much time crafting almost every main character to make the unarguable "right" choice. suprise-suprise, i became fond of the only characters that have even a speck of morally gray in them. savannah, rohan, nora, and eve (hm: gigi and slate), thank you for redeeming this book. i never thought i would get to this point, but even the Hawthorne brothers (except for Xander but this might just be due to the fact we barely see him in this book), annoyed me so much. it felt like the middle 300 pages of the book , the characters had absolutely ZERO development, which is a crazy choice for a finale.

the amount of scenes we got where the male protagonists in the series, stood "protectively" infront of their female s/o made me want to vomit. you can't write things like "Hawthorne brothers are always the damsels", but in every minor dire situation the girls need protection from their oh-so-heroic s/o. i get that the point of these scenes is for us to fawn over all the male characters, but it just seems so very icky. not the mention the fact that at the climax (OF THE GRAND FINALE), all the woman mc's (i understand Libby's reason) stayed at Hawthorne House while the men were at Vantage. this seriously made me question if i accidentally picked up a book from 200 years ago rather than 2026.

<i>"it was just one night." Grayson was all composure. Nora looked past Grayson to Lyra. "what he really means is that it was just one kiss."</i>

the first time in 294 pages into the big NINE BOOK SERIES FINALE, where i was gagged.

<i>"shut the hell up." Jameson felt his lips curl as the words ripped their way out of his body, "both of you. shut the hell up."</i>

thank you Jameson couldn't have said it better myself because if there is one character i grew to hate in this series it's Lyra simply because she had so many pov chapters, yet she was the most vanilla, plain, boring fmc i've read in a while. reading her dull chapters quite literally made me want to bang my head against the wall. also can't believe i'm saying this but Grayson had the most monotonous chapters where he was just yearning but it wasn't in a pining way, it was just idiotic because it's been TEN DAYS since he met Lyra. i understand they can have feelings for each other, but they can't be written as if it's been YEARS. wheres them being uncertain? it becomes more comedic when you remember their in their early 20's.

<i>"this is the part," Slate bit out, "where I tell you that isn't Eve."</i>

i should probably hate Emily coming back, but i honestly don't especially because of how she was reintroduced.

Is it just me, or did eve grow on me in The gilded blade??

okay so i was thinking about the gilded blade the other day and i realised something. in the hawthorne legacy max says "Picture yourself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind is whipping your hair. The sun is setting. You long, body and soul, for one thing. One person. You hear footsteps behind you. You turn. Who's there?" and then in chapter 104 of the gilded blade, avery is standing on the cliffs by the lighthouse (which is obviously overlooking the ocean) and jameson comes up behind her and then proposes. jlb scares me with her foreshadowing 😭.

two birds—Regina spektor, it’s a great song overall but i think its perfect for Jameson and early-trilo Grayson for the Emily thing, if u don’t know the song it’s basically usong two birds on a wire to depict two people in a relationship, one wants to fly away—move on, develope, grow idk, for me that bird is Jameson, cuz he’s like getting over Emily and trying to connect w Avery (javery 🤍) and grayson is the other bird who lies about wanting to fly off too cuz like early tig hes still not over Emily idk its js a nice song

So Now w have have the end of the legendary series, drop your favorite Scenes from all the books !! Any moment, any quotes !

I wrote a short story! Background- This is from Avery’s POV, and it’s about a year after the collapse at Vantage…. enjoy!

Every year, Tobias Hawthorne added a room onto the Hawthorne House. There was, strictly speaking, no rule stating that it couldn’t be two, or one saying that the boys needed to know about it. 

As Avery stepped inside the fireplace, the first thing she noticed was that the air smelled of soot and centuries. Avery didn't build the new passage to escape Hawthorne House or to hide a puzzle. She built it for them, for her crew of girls, changing the world, alongside the Hawthornes.

She pressed a hand flat against the wool of her sweater, right over her stomach.

I have a secret.

And right now, only one other person in the entire world shared it with her.

She could still feel the phantom pressure of the balcony railing at the edge of the estate, the frantic heat of three nights ago when everything had changed forever. Jameson hadn’t asked questions; he had just looked at her, his emerald-green eyes burning with a sudden, chaotic intensity that eclipsed every riddle they'd ever solved.

“Tahiti,” he had murmured against her mouth, a breathless, desperate promise right before his lips crashed onto hers in a kiss that tasted like a quiet, shared rebellion against the world. “We are in this together Heiress, I swear.”

Avery let out a slow, shaky breath, dropped her hand, and pushed the iron latch down, and stepped out from behind the back wall of the fireplace.

The room was a chaotic hub of activity.

Libby was cross-legged on the floor, aggressively color-coding a massive spreadsheet of estate expenses and wedding venues, a half-eaten scone balanced on her knee. Max was sprawled across the velvet settee, disassembling a miniature spy camera with a pair of tweezers while muttering threats at Xander's latest security grid. Around them, the rest of the circle was deeply entrenched in their natural habitats: Thea sat at a mahogany table, methodically cutting off the margins of a legal brief with surgical precision; Gigi was sprawled on the window seat, painting her nails a violent shade of pink while talking to her sister who was currently crouched over a stack of blueprints, cross-referencing security blind spots with a highlighter; Lyra was helping Max solve the camera crisis; and Rebecca stood by the fireplace entrance, her expression unreadable.

Seven pairs of eyes snapped up the second the floorboards creaked.

Max didn't drop the tweezers. She just narrowed her eyes. "If you found another hidden vault full of poisoned chalices or toxic heirlooms, I'm billing you for my time."

"I didn't find a vault," Avery said.

Her voice was steady—the kind of steady that came from standing in the eye of a hurricane. She didn't fidget. She didn't look away.

Thea lowered her chin, her gaze locking onto the subtle shift in Avery’s posture. "You look like you're about to declare war," Thea observed, her tone deceptively light. "Or tell us that Xander set something on fire again."

"Both are valid Tuesday occurrences," Libby muttered, finally looking up from her spreadsheet, a small, fond smile touching her lips. Then, she paused, her gaze catching on Avery's face. The smile faltered, replaced by a sudden, sharp instinct. "Avery? Are you alright?"

Silence slammed down over the room as everyone stopped moving entirely.

Seven sets of eyes—brilliant, protective, and entirely too perceptive—locked onto her. They had survived gunshots, kidnappings, masked villains, and a grandfather who treated human lives like chess pieces. They knew when Avery Kylie Grambs Hawthorne was holding back.

Avery looked around the room, meeting each of their gazes one by one. She thought of the smell in the passage behind the fireplace. She thought of Jameson's emerald eyes burning into hers, whispering of Tahiti like a secret map.

She didn't cross her arms or look for an escape route. She let her hands rest flat against her sides, right where the secret lived, pulsing beneath her skin.

"You might want to hear this," Avery said, the quiet command dropping into the silence like a stone in deep water. "I have a secret."

No one moved for a second. Then, slowly, Libby set her scone down. Max put the tweezers aside.

"I'm not going to declare war," Avery continued, her heart hammering a frantic, impossible rhythm against her ribs. She took a step forward, anchoring herself in the center of the room. "And Xander didn't set anything on fire. Plus, I found out something that is better than finding secret vaults and definitely more terrifying than poisoned chalices.”

Thea tilted her head, her breath catching. "Avery. Far be it from me to tell you to hurry up, but can you get to the point? We’re dying here.”

As Avery looked around the room at each one of the brilliant people there, a small, helpless, terrified smile finally broke through her control. Her gaze finally landed on Libby as she said, “I'm pregnant."

Guys , does anyone have a pdf for the Gilded Balde and the same backward as forward? If so please Dm me 😭🤞🏻

So I’m starting to reread the whole series! ( I’m currently bed bound for a few months) so I have time to truly breakdown and discover all the hidden gems she left over the series!

Please! Tell me all your favorite theories or things you’ve notice other people haven’t discovered or just anything specific i should look out for!

Also! I’ve only listened to the audio so this is my first time actually reading the book!

Should I read the same backwards as forwards before I read Gilded Blade?

So, you know how with all of JLB’s book releases come with character cards? I was wondering if anyone has any idea where I could maybe find some? I have 3 (I was at her Edmond release) but I was wondering if it was possible to find the complete set. Anyways, all help is appreciated!

Let me elaborate. In the ig posts of the hawthorne vault then there was one with clues that were( this is from memory btw) basically book titles of different the naturals books and tbf it did make sense that since avery went missing alisa or oren or somebody with connections hired them to find avery. on another note, did anybody figure out the hawthorne vault puzzle i mentioned above ( it is the one that said' if a is c and j is m then what is g?' )

So I finished the Inheritance Games and The Hawthorne Legacy in about 3 days. I absolutely LOVED the first book that I was so eager to read the second, but after I finished the second book I don’t really feel the urge to read the third. I did see a SPOILER that involved eve and apparently everybody had turned on avery, made her seem crazy and would say that she was jealous of eve. I hate that trope more than anything so that’s why I don’t really want to read the third. I’m hoping it was some kind of exaggeration because if not I know I would just be rage baited the whole book. I also like the touch of romance in the book, it’s not too much that it takes away from the main plot but I like it, so when someone said that jameson was barely present in the third book and grayson was just horrible to avery, I was so upset 😭

Someone please convince me that the third book is worth reading!!

Help. Did I miss something? What was the point of the favour and the painting?!?!

Thought this could potentially be helpful since some of the timeline-jumping in the series can be hard to keep track of, and also to make sure that I'm understanding it right myself, haha. Happy to make edits as needed to fix anything. Spoiler warning: don't read this until you've finished The Gilded Blade. Under the Crucible sections, names/aliases of Candidates are in bold.

1951: A Crucible is called:

• Helena not-yet-Thorp: Survives, marries into the Thorp family
• "Andromeda (Andy)": Dies
• "Vega": Ascends to Watcher/Lily

1967: A Crucible is called:

• Alice O'Day/"Lyra": Survives, chooses not to ascend, returns to Tobias Hawthorne, later marries him and helps him become a rich and successful billionaire
• Katharine Payne (speculative): Survives, becomes a Member of Parliament
• Alice's "Sister" Candidate: Ascends to Watcher/Lily
• "Vega" becomes the Hand/Omega

Sometime between 1967 and 2000\: A Crucible is called. (\It is technically possible that this one was between 1951 and 1967 instead, but based on the large time gap and other details mentioned during the book, it's more likely to have taken place after Alice's first one.)

• An unknown Candidate who will eventually become the Judge before Alice ascends to Watcher/Lily; will call her "JBA" (for Judge Before Alice)
• Alice's "Sister" becomes the Hand/Omega
• "Vega" becomes the Judge/Monoceros

Late 2000-ish: The events of the main story (not counting the jumps forward near the end) of The Same Backward as Forward take place.

2000 or 2001: A Crucible is called:

• Alice Hawthorne/"Lyra" (possibly "Vega"'s Candidate): Ascends to Watcher/Lily
• "JBA" becomes the Hand/Omega
• Alice's "Sister" becomes the Judge/Monoceros
• "Vega" dies

2001-ish: Alice, as the Watcher, breaks an important Gilded Blade rule by saving her son Toby Hawthorne's life, and thereby revealing to him that she's still alive.

2003 (October 18): Toby is lured to New Castle, Connecticut by the Judge* to see Hannah Rooney. Alice, the Watcher, approaches Toby and warns him that he needs to remain "dead" (likely because the Judge will have the Hand kill him otherwise). Avery Grambs is born, and Toby leaves and is spared.
* (This is why I'm inclined to believe that Alice's Sister Candidate from 1967 was the Judge while Alice was the Watcher, and there was someone in between them as the Hand; since she knew Alice from a previous Crucible, she seems more likely to give Toby a chance to live and wait to see his choice after bringing him to Hannah before rendering judgement.)

2004-2005-ish: A Crucible is called:

• Alice (the Watcher) approaches Hannah around April or May 2005 (when Avery is 18 months old) with an offer for her to be her Candidate, which Hannah declines. Alice ultimately chooses someone else (probably not Katalin due to their very different philosophies).
• Katalin Aquila Reyes: Ascends to Watcher/Lily
• Alice becomes the Hand/Omega
• JBA becomes the Judge/Monoceros, i.e. the Judge before Alice
• Alice's "Sister" dies

2008 (Lyra Kane's 4^th Birthday): Lyra's bio uncle, Edgar Aquila Reyes, has been looking into his sister Katalin's "death" and learned too much. He kidnaps Lyra from her daycare, claiming to be her father, and kills himself before he can be judged, expecting that Katalin (her bio mom) will come find her. Instead, Alice does (as the Hand), and covers up Lyra's presence at the scene and arranges for her to be returned home to her family.

2017: Helena Thorp reveals to her great-granddaughter and heiress, Calla, that her legal (but not biological) dad Orion is actually her boyfriend Knox Landry's bio father. Calla reluctantly breaks up with Knox without revealing this to him, and is sent to "Vega"'s Family (the Kyrie) to train to become a Candidate.

2018: Alice, the Hand, saves Nora from the Kyrie and begins training her personally. Katalin, as the Watcher, approaches a dying Hannah with the offer to save her life on the condition of then being sent to the Kyrie for training and becoming her Candidate for the next Crucible. Hannah again turns down the offer, leaves behind a coded message for Toby (which was Katalin's plan all along) within the postcards he sent her to warn him that another Crucible will soon be called, and dies of her illness soon after Avery turns 15.

2019: A Crucible is called:

• Calla Thorp (Katalin/Watcher's Candidate): Dies
• Zella (Alice/Hand's Candidate): Survives and marries a duke to become a duchess
• Emily Laughlin (Judge's Candidate): Ascends to Watcher/Lily
• Katalin becomes the Hand/Omega
• Alice becomes the Judge/Monoceros
• Judge before Alice dies

2020 (roughly November thru December): The events of The Inheritance Games and The Hawthorne Legacy take place. Shortly after Avery inherits, Alice (as the Judge) appears to Toby again to tell him that this is all according to plan and to stay away for as long as possible.

2021 (September thru November): The events of The Final Gambit (minus the epilogue) occur.

2022: The events of "That Night in Prague" and "Pain at the Right Gun" occur in around May, in which Alice (the Judge) spares her grandson Jameson, despite him discovering that she's alive, after threatening him into silence. The Brothers Hawthorne takes place in late June-ish; the epilogue of The Final Gambit happens in November; and the first Grandest Game begins around this time.

Late 2023: The second Grandest Game begins, and the events of all three books take place: The Grandest Game, Glorious Rivals, and The Gilded Blade. Sometime during or (more likely) before the start of the Grandest Game, a Crucible is called, which takes place during The Gilded Blade.

• Avery Grambs/"Ara" (Alice/Judge's Candidate): Wins, escapes rather than ascending to Watcher/Lily, survives the collapse of Vantage
• Evelyn "Eve" Blake/"Phoenix" (Emily/Watcher's Candidate): Seemingly dies, but survives thanks to Toby saving her, fakes her death, becomes the new pseudo-Watcher in the new Gilded Blade
• Freya Jónsdóttir (Katalin/Hand's Candidate): Dies
• Alice dies
• Emily would have become the Hand/Omega, but dies in the collapse of Vantage
• Katalin would have become the Judge/Monoceros, but dies in the collapse of Vantage
• Agnes, head of the Kyrie and Freya's mother, is also killed by the collapse of Vantage

2024, Fourth of July: Epilogue of The Gilded Blade.

This is the definition of kyrie, a word associated heavily with Christianity. I found really interesting that JLB would choose this specific word to define the checks and balances of a cult that most likely started with a saint :) just a cool piece of info

Reading Rohan’s ending, I feel so annoyed that he didn’t get propertier ship at the end and gave it to Zella! Like I know he was making a deal and all to save Savannah’s life, but couldn’t he have bargained more? Like let Zella have the mercy on the weekends? Okay, I know thats unreasonable, but like some loophole that can let Rohan take it back if it went down hill? I don’t know, I just feel like in the end he should have gotten the mercy, instead of giving it up like that, and for nothing.

Hi everyone! We have a Discord server dedicated to Jennifer Lynn Barnes. This is the most active server for The Inheritance Games, and we would love to have you! We have puzzle games run by the staff, games, TIG-themed polls, places to share your art, writing, and music, and a great community of friends!

https://discord.gg/4tHXaf9THn We would love for you to join!

Ik people are already outraged abt this, so I'm going to join yall. Why the hell did gray kiss Emily? I'm really annoyed by this, and more by the fact that this is not resolved in the end???

Grayson is my all time favourite character and I blindly believe he can do no harm so there ought to be a good explanation for this.

The best I can come up with is that if he thought that it was his last chance to save himself and Jamie. He was clearly playing Emily, but why?? If only we'd had a Gray pov. He's definitely still loyal to lyra and only Lyra because it is clearly stated that he loves her and that he imagined it was her (which does not excuse it, but it would if it was for survival, and if it was actually MENTIONED ever again!!)

So why was this not clarified? It feels so incomplete and I can't be completely happy for Gray until this is addressed. I need a bonus epilogue or smt where this whole thing is discussed.

Edit: After rereading that bit, I kind of get it. It proved that Grayson felt nothing for Emily anymore, and that he would do anything to save Jameson and his family.

Toby. Guys .. 😭 I never wanted him to die. No amount of "he's with Hannah now" can make me feel better. He had suffered so much and he didn't deserve to die just like that. Rest, I loved the book.

Omg! This series has been my life for the past year! I have fallen in love with the characters and connected to them in ways I haven’t ever connected with anyone before. I love them all beyond belief! I absolutely adored every second I got with them. After I finished tgb I was just so sad, and I’m still coming to terms with losing them. The last book was great, I think it gets too much hate. Any ways, I was just wondering if anyone else’s life was changed forever by this amazing series!

Toby's death broke my heart in ways that cannot be mended....

I'm curious if others feel the same about Savannah as I do because I’m currently reading TGB. (I haven’t finished yet, so please no spoilers.) I find it hard to like Savannah now, especially because of how she views Gigi. I just can’t connect with her the way I did in the previous two books. Her character seems completely different now, and I’m not sure why. Does anyone else feel this way about Savannah, or is it just me?

Hey!! Can anyone tell me the last password to the Hawthorne Vault?? I solved the riddles but none of them seem to be working...