Avery Kylie Grambs is coming up on the end of one year of living in Hawthorne House. Soon, one of the largest fortunes in the world (billions and billions of dollars) will be Avery’s. She has satisfied every stipulation in the will set out by Tobias Hawthorne, solved the many puzzles and riddles that he left, and established herself as part of the family along with her older sister. Things are going alright. Until someone shows up claiming to be the daughter of Tobias’ estranged son that everyone believed was dead. At the same time, Avery’s employees and wealth are being poached. Someone is gunning for Avery’s destruction, and it’s up to Avery and the Hawthorne boys to figure out who.
The issues that I had with the endings of the previous two books in this trilogy are compounded here. All of the secrets that were revealed in the final chapters of books 1 and 2 inform the plot of this book. The family relationships that were revealed were so challenging for me to follow in this book. I needed a family tree to visualize who all was related to whom. And truthfully, those highly complicated relationships didn’t add much to the plot beyond being one more little mystery or puzzle for the reader to figure out.
The ending, however, was phenomenal. Barnes really stuck the landing of what Avery would do after completing the necessary year of living at Hawthorne House stipulated by the late Tobias Hawthorne in his will. Every character arc in the core group of characters was wonderfully handled. The ending definitely bumped up my rating a full star.
All in all, this is a fun trilogy that I’m happy I picked up, family tree issues notwithstanding.
