Intrigue, riches, and romance abound in this thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Inheritance Games perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Jennifer Lynn Barnes about The Hawthorne Legacy, which is the sequel to The Inheritance Games, along with writing, what’s next for her, and more!
Hi, Jennifer! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a psychology professor by day and a writer by night. The Hawthorne Legacy is novel number twenty-two for me. I wrote my first published novel when I was nineteen and haven’t stopped since. On the academic side of things, my area of research is the psychology of fiction, the imagination, and fandom.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
There was a brief period of time when I was five that I wanted to be a veterinarian, but from first grade on, I always wanted to be a writer. I finished my first “practice novel” (which will never see the light of day!) when I was a senior in high school.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
First book: I was a late reader. I was really good at memorization as a kid, so instead of learning to sound out words, I just memorized them and had no idea what to do when I came to a word that I didn’t already know. I learned to read during winter break of first grade, when our next door neighbour gave me a copy of the book she used to learn to read herself, many years earlier. It was of the See Spot Run variety and very old—but somehow, knowing that it was the book that had taught a grown-up in my life to read helped me finally make the connection, and a few weeks later, I was reading chapter books.
Book that made me want to become an author: I’ve always wanted to become an author, so I can’t think of any one book that started that obsession, but I do remember that knowing that The Outsiders had been written by a teenager from Oklahoma (and someone I knew, at that!) was very formative for me.
The last book I can’t stop thinking about: I have recently become obsessed with Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. I’ve read all twenty books in the past couple of months.
The Hawthorne Legacy releases on September 7th 2021 and it is the follow-up to The Inheritance Games as well as the second installment in the series! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Billionaire. Puzzle. Mystery. Swoony boys.
For those who haven’t read The Inheritance Games, what might await readers?
The Inheritance Games series is the story of an eccentric, puzzle-obsessed billionaire who dies and leaves his entire fortune to a teenage girl who has no idea who he is. In order to find out why he chose her, the protagonist must team up with the billionaire’s four grandsons to solve his final puzzle.
Each book in the series gives you a solution to the puzzle, but with deceased billionaire Tobias Hawthorne, nothing is ever as simple as a single answer would make you believe. As the series progresses, you discover more and more Hawthorne family secrets that let you see that much more of the big picture.
And for those who have, what can they expect in The Hawthorne Legacy?
All of the major mystery-related questions that you have at the end of book one are answered in book two! But you may discover a few new questions, too.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing the sequel and how you were able to overcome them?
One of the hardest things about writing The Hawthorne Legacy was that I kept bumping up against the limitations of telling the story in Avery’s first-person perspective. The books have a large cast, all of whom have complicated relationships with one another, and the plot of book two is bigger and more sprawling than the first, so it was a real challenge to do justice to all of the subplots, relationships, and reveals when I could only show the world through Avery’s eyes. My initial plan for the book involved spreading out to 5 different points-of-view. I wrote the first draft that way, but ultimately, that ended up taking the focus off of Avery too much, so I then had to revise to keep all of the same plot beats but told solely through Avery’s perspective.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring further?
I really love writing all of the characters in this series, but one of my favorite things in book two was getting to explore the relationships between the four Hawthorne brothers a bit more. At the start of book one, the brothers’ relationships are fractured, but their grandfather’s final puzzle throws them together once more. In book two, some—though not all—of those fractures have healed, so I got to delve into how tight-knit these four were once upon a time—and come up with all kinds of absolutely bananas Hawthorne family traditions that the Hawthorne boys came up with, growing up as the presumptive heirs of one of the world’s biggest fortunes.
Can we have a little tease for the third installment, which is currently titled The Final Gambit!?
In The Inheritance Games, Avery learns that she will inherit Tobias Hawthorne’s billions only if she lives in Hawthorne House (his sprawling, secret passage filled mansion) for a year. The first two books take place in the weeks directly after the will is read. Book three jumps forward in time, as the clock is ticking down toward the one-year mark when Avery finally gets the money.
What’s next for you?
Right now, I’m revising The Final Gambit. After that, I will turn my attention back to a project that I actually wrote before The Final Gambit but haven’t revised yet. That book will be due out in 2023, and it is very much in the vein of The Inheritance Games. I can’t reveal the premise yet, but it also involves billionaires, family secrets, a larger-than-life mystery, and one of my favorite tropes of all time!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
For mystery-thriller lovers, I am really loving the series that started with A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and continued with Good Girl, Bad Blood. Beyond that, I’ve also recently read and enjoyed The Gilded Ones and Six Crimson Cranes, both of which are YA fantasy.
