THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS… READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Recently, I finished the book “The Brothers Hawthorne” by Jennifer Lynn Barnes which is the fourth book in the Inheritance Games series. Although it is not finished, this series has quickly become one of my favorites with its intricate storyline and deep character relationships. The story at hand is practically perfect … except for the part where my favorite character, Grayson Davenport Hawthorne, doesn’t get the girl. 

This girl in question is Avery Kylie Grambs: one of the best female main characters I have read about in a long time. Her confidence and intelligence bleed through every page. Her story starts when she gets a visitor at her school informing her that Tobias Hawthorne — a recently deceased Texas billionaire — left his entire fortune to her. The catch? She has never met this man in her life. Avery is faced with trying to solve this mystery with Tobias’s four grandsons; Nash, Grayson, Jameson and Xander. As I’m sure you can imagine, the story only gets better form there. 

Immediately when Grayson Hawthorne was introduced, I knew he would become one of my favorite characters. Tobias Hawthorne raised Grayson as the heir apparent, meaning he was shaped and molded into the perfect person to run the empire his grandfather should have left him. When Avery entered the picture, taking what he thought was to be his, the two characters didn’t quite get along. This tension between the two created the perfect opportunity for an “enemies to lovers” romance, however, the story took a different direction. That direction being Jameson Hawthorne. 

Now, don’t get me wrong — I love Jameson. He is a great character and he adds a different perspective and personality to the main group of characters. This being said, I think he needs to sort through his priorities. Throughout the story, it seems as though Avery is an afterthought to him; almost like she will always come second to whatever mystery they are solving at the moment. As I mentioned, Avery is a wonderful girl and shouldn’t be taken advantage of the way Jameson takes advantage of her. Avery would be much better off with someone else … like Grayson.

With the fifth book, “The Grandest Games,” coming out on July 30, I can only hope that Barnes rights this wrong, but only time will tell.