The denouement of the Hawthorne mystery! Are you ready?
Title: The Final Gambit
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Published: August 2022
Pages: 392
Publisher: Blossom Books (I read this book in Dutch, review copy)
Rating: 8/10
First posted in Dutch on September 13 2022 and updated on April 15 2025.
Avery’s fortune, life, and loves are on the line in the game that everyone will be talking about.
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.
Unlike the first two books, I had trouble getting into the final installment. Right from the start there was a lot going on and the author rushed through the scenes in my opinion. After a few chapters, I got finally into the story and the mystery surrounding the Hawthorne family. It felt a bit like coming home, to experience the atmosphere again with a group of close friends/family.
In case details from the first two books are no longer fresh in your mind, it would be wise to reread it, because I often had to look things up since I no longer understood them. Even the smallest details come back. In addition, it is quite a puzzle to figure out all the families and their dynamics.
Speaking of which, that is one of my few criticisms in this book: there are too many people in the main cast!
Avery has more and more people around her and often quite a few characters are present in the same room, which made characters redundant, because no one really seemed to have their own voice anymore. This is especially true for my beloved character Grayson, who I felt regularly acted out of character in this book.
In this installment Avery has a good idea of what is expected of her and after the growth in the previous two books, she now has a better picture of the future for herself. Even when she finds out the real reason why Tobias had appointed her as heir, she doesn’t seem to be easily disconcerted. After all, Avery knows that there is no way back. The only thing she can do is courageously move forward and at the same time she is now mature enough to be able to say: I will do what has to be done, but in my own way.
It is a good thing that Avery stands tall, because in this last part we experience the last weeks before it turns into a year of her living in the Hawthorne house. Of course, it doesn’t go smoothly at all, but as a reader I couldn’t get enough of the mysteries! I was still puzzling along every time. But you also notice that the end is almost in sight. And when new players enter the playing field, the tension also increases and from that point onwards you want to read the book in one go.
The Final Gambit gives all the answers I hoped for as a reader. Although I actually haven’t had enough of all the riddles, the story is nicely rounded off. The dry humor and sarcasm of this series will stay with me for a long time. After all those riddles and the many plot twists, the Hawthorne mystery is a wonderful page turner!
Love,
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