65 pages • 2 hours read
Jennifer Lynn BarnesThe Brothers Hawthorne
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Jennifer Lynn Barnes is a young adult author with multiple completed series, including The Squad (Perfect Cover, Killer Spirit), The Naturals (The Naturals, Killer Instinct, All In, Bad Blood, Twelve), and The Debutantes (Little White Lies, Deadly Little Scandals). Barnes’s first book was published when she was 19 years old. In addition to her accomplishments as a fiction author, Barnes holds degrees in “psychology, psychiatry, and cognitive science, including graduate degrees from Cambridge University, where she was a Fulbright Scholar, and Yale University, where she received her Ph.D. in 2012” (“Bio.” Jennifer Lynn Barnes). Barnes “is one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of fandom and the cognitive science of fiction and the imagination more broadly” (“Bio”). She is a professor of both psychology and professional writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Barnes is known for novels that explore adolescent psychology in high-pressure situations, particularly the long-term developmental effects of poverty on young girls. Barnes leverages her academic training in her portrayal of adolescent trauma, sometimes drawing directly on her training in crime thrillers such as The Naturals. Barnes is known for the depth of her characters and intricate, thrilling plots that combine high stakes with interpersonal relationships.
Series Context: The Inheritance Games
The Brothers Hawthorne is a standalone novel connecting a spin-off series beginning with The Grandest Game (2024) to Barnes’s New York Times bestselling series The Inheritance Games. The first book in the series was a Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year, a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, and an Edgar Awards nominee for Best Young Adult novel.
In The Inheritance Games, a financially struggling teenage girl, Avery Kylie Grambs, suddenly inherits the fortune of billionaire philanthropist Tobias Hawthorne, to whom she seemingly has no connection. The inheritance stipulates that Avery must live at Hawthorne House—with the remaining members of Tobias’s family, including his four grandsons—for a full year before the funds are fully hers.
Avery’s knack for games and puzzles helps her connect to Tobias’s grandsons, who grew up constantly challenged by their trickster grandfather. The grandsons want to uncover the mystery behind Avery’s inexplicable inheritance, and why they were cut out. They quickly bond with Avery to solve the larger puzzle. Grayson and Jameson, the two closest in age to Avery, both vie for her romantic attention; Avery ultimately chooses Jameson.
Avery’s quest to find the connection between herself and the Hawthornes leads her to Toby Hawthorne, an unhoused man she knew as Harry, who is Tobias Hawthorne’s adopted son. The latter half of the trilogy follows Avery, Grayson, and Jameson as they learn about Toby, his biological daughter Eve, and Vincent Blake, a man with a vendetta against Tobias Hawthorne. Eve manipulates the Hawthornes to be named Vincent Blake’s heir and makes herself a rival to Avery. Avery successfully makes it to the end of her Hawthorne Year and vows to donate 94% of her inheritance to charity. The Brothers Hawthorne takes place in the months following her announcement.
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