The Brothers Hawthorne

The Brothers Hawthorne (2023) is the fourth installment of The Inheritance Games series (The Inheritance Games, The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit), with the fifth book (a collection), Games Untold, scheduled to be released in November 2024. The Brothers Hawthorne and Games Untold overlap Barnes’s sequel series, which begins with The Grandest Game (July 2024). Alternating between Jameson’s and Grayson Hawthorne’s points of view, The Brothers Hawthorne follows both brothers as they navigate their relationships with their biological fathers and the families they never knew they had. Through two mysteries—one in Phoenix and one in London—the novel explores The Many Meanings of Family Loyalty, How Gender and Class Affect Family Dynamics, and The Long-term Effects of Emotional Suppression.

This guide references the 2023 Little, Brown and Company hardcover edition.

Content Warning: This guide discusses gun violence, child neglect, and financial manipulation.

Plot Summary

On Christmas, 12½ years ago, the Hawthorne brothers—Nash (14), Grayson (8), Jameson (7), and Xander (5)—followed a series of clues to a massive tree house given to them by their grandfather, Tobias Hawthorne. In the present day, Jameson and Avery Kylie Grambs, the 18-year-old heiress to Tobias Hawthorne’s fortune, are traveling the world, preparing for the launch of Avery’s foundation and her plan to give away 94% of the Hawthorne fortune. Nash summons them, and his other brothers, to the Hawthorne flat in London with an announcement: He is engaged to Libby Grambs, Avery’s sister. While in London, Jameson is approached by his biological father, Ian Johnstone-Jameson, with a request: enter the most secret social club, the Devil’s Mercy, and win an invitation to the Game.

Before Jameson can share this invitation with his brothers, Grayson is whisked away to Phoenix on undisclosed business, and Xander and Nash return to Hawthorne House. Grayson’s business in Phoenix is his half-sister, Gigi Grayson, daughter of now-deceased Sheffield Grayson, who has landed herself in jail. Grayson has been surveilling his twin half-sisters since the death of their father, but neither knows about Grayson or that Sheffield is dead. When it seems like Gigi may have the key to a safe-deposit box containing evidence about Sheffield’s plot against Avery, and his death, Grayson decides to help Gigi find the box so that he can steal it first.

In London, Jameson accepts his father’s challenge: to win the Game and win back their family’s ancestral home, Vantage. Jameson and Avery leverage her clout as an heiress to gain entry to the Devil’s Mercy from Rohan, the Factotum of the club and its presumptive heir. For three nights, Jameson gambles and fights his way into impressing the club owner, the Proprietor. Jameson, his uncle Simon, Avery, a mysterious duchess named Zella, and Katherine, a woman employed by Ian and Simon’s third brother, are all drugged and whisked away to the Game. This year, the Game is run by Rohan on the grounds of Vantage.

Gigi introduces Grayson to her mother, Acacia, and her twin sister, Savannah. Acacia Grayson is gracious, apologizing to Grayson for Sheffield’s lack of care or concern, and Grayson feels an immediate connection with her. Despite their family’s wealth, Acacia’s accounts have been drained, seemingly by an absent Sheffield—though Grayson knows this to be impossible. Savannah, who knows Grayson’s parentage, does not trust him and does not want him to help Gigi find their father’s safe-deposit box. Savannah’s boyfriend, Duncan Trowbridge, is the son of Kent Trowbridge, the Grayson family lawyer, the executor of the twins’ trusts, and a former rival to Sheffield for Acacia’s affection. Stubborn, Gigi presses forward and asks Savannah to throw a party at Duncan’s house so that she and Grayson can search Kent’s office.

Between the Grayson mansion and the Trowbridge office, Gigi and Grayson find keys and passwords that lead them to the safe-deposit box. Savannah, who finds a fake ID with the name Tobias Davenport and realizes the box is under this name, tricks the bank personnel into revealing that only “Tobias Davenport” and her mother can open it. They all arrive at the bank together to open the box, which contains pictures of Grayson from across his life and stacks of bank withdrawal slips for odd amounts marked KM. Grayson and the twins work out that KM refers to Kim Wright, Sheffield’s estranged sister and the mother of Colin, whose death prompted Sheffield to kidnap Avery in the previous book.

Hidden at Vantage are three keys and three boxes; two of those boxes contain Simon and Jameson’s secrets, wagered to the Proprietor for an invitation to play. Rohan tells the competitors that to win, they must tell him what they find inside the third box. Avery and Jameson work together to solve Rohan’s riddles and manage to find two keys and two boxes. Simon has the third box, containing Jameson’s secret, and he and Zella offer to trade the secret back to Jameson for the chance to win. Afraid for Avery to learn his secret, Jameson wants to agree to the trade, but Avery snatches the parchment with Jameson’s secret out of Zella’s hands and burns it. Avery is disqualified from the Game, and despite Ian’s sudden appearance and demand that Jameson quit the Game, Jameson continues searching for the final key.

Grayson and the twins visit their aunt, Kim Wright, and she shows them a puzzle box that Sheffield kept at her house. The twins and Grayson solve the first part of the puzzle box, but the second requires a small key that Grayson found earlier in the book and kept secret from the twins. That night, Grayson solves the puzzle box by himself, revealing Sheffield’s coded journal. Grayson, with Nash and Xander’s help, decodes the journal, revealing not only evidence of Sheffield’s embezzlement from his company but also his diary-like entries about Grayson, Avery, and his plans for revenge leading up to his death. Grayson recreates the coded journal to give to Gigi and Savannah so that he can hide all the evidence, but Gigi catches him. Betrayed, Gigi and Savannah tell Grayson to leave them alone.

The final key is hidden inside a bell in the Vantage lighthouse. Jameson and Zella both arrive at the top to get the key, but Zella puts Jameson in a situation where he can either take the key, dooming Zella to fall to her death, or save Zella, and allow her to take the key. Jameson saves Zella, and Zella, rather than keeping the key for herself, trades it to Katherine for some unnamed reward. Though Katherine opens the final box, she can’t solve the riddle. Jameson solves the riddle and asks Rohan for Vantage as his prize. Rohan agrees, and Simon offers to manage the Vantage trust on Jameson’s behalf as an accepted member of their family. Jameson and Avery are summoned back to Hawthorne House by Grayson’s 911 text.

Back at Hawthorne House, Grayson, Xander, Jameson, and Nash meet in the tree house. Grayson explains the situation with his sisters, the embezzlement scheme, and Trowbridge’s financial manipulation of Acacia’s trust. The brothers work together to form a plan to catch Trowbridge in the act of stealing money from Acacia to force her to marry him, and Avery encourages Grayson to tell his half-sisters the truth, even if it puts her in a dangerous position. After Grayson traps Trowbridge and returns the money to Acacia, Gigi shows up at Hawthorne House to forgive Grayson. Grayson tells her the truth about their father, and Gigi decides that they should keep the information from Savannah to protect her. Jameson finally reveals his secret to Avery: Alice Hawthorne, Tobias’s wife, is still alive.

The book closes with an epilogue from Eve’s point of view as she receives the news that Avery and Jameson are launching the Grandest Game. Out of jealousy, and for revenge, Eve plans to tell Savannah the truth about her father.