For me, capping off a book or a series is a very risky gamble for any author to pull off. While I had my misgivings with some of the direction that The Hawthorne Legacy took, I dove into Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Final Gambit with open arms. I’ve spoken about my disagreements with the endings of some books before, such as Emiko Jean’s Tokyo Ever After and Tokyo Dreaming, or even VS Nelson’s The Archivist.

On the other end of reading through the not-so Final Gambit of Avery Kylie Grambs, I can’t say the final chapters satisfied me as much as they should have. However, the adventure leading up to the queen of this puzzling world getting her inheritance certainly did what The Hawthorne Legacy couldn’t.

Now on the brink of gaining billions from Tobias Hawthorne, a couple of ghosts are crawling from the crypt of the Hawthorne House to haunt the lives of Ave, Gray, Xander, Nash, and Jameson. The adventure and page-turning pacing returns with a mystery hanging over the ghost that is Emily haunting Gray following his desire to distance himself from Ave after she chose Jameson last time. As I’ve stated, despite it being a personal issue, I still have my misgivings about relationships in entertainment, books in particular.

It is difficult to talk about something three books in without spoilers, especially in a story that is linked so closely to The Hawthrone Legacy. The bombshell revealed that despite Toby’s relationship with Ave’s mother, Tobias senior’s inheritance decision was not a paternal one and Toby’s only kid is with another woman. Now with Toby captured once again, a young woman appears on the doorstep (or rather at the gate) of Hawthorne House claiming to be Toby’s daughter, Eve. This kicks off the final game, with a new mystery and villain to decipher near the eve of Ave’s inheritance.

It’s a game of chess with all the pieces moving into place as the old man plays a few moves ahead of everyone. The story of The Final Gambit concerns itself with what the old man knew that very few others did. As I’ve said of Lynn Barnes a few times now, her ability to keep you enticed with a page-turning mystery while effectively being my most hated form of drama (teen drama) is brilliant. Some dialogue still feels like exposition to move the plot while lacking full logical steps, or serves as heightened drama to get us to the next point. Though the lives of the soon-to-be coronated queen of this Texas-based fortune and her adopted family continue to be captivating.

The downside comes from a mystery that is best left as a puzzle that you want to uncover. Eve’s motives and otherwise sketchy-ness is for little more than service of the plot. Descriptions of her looks being similar, almost twin-like, to Emily Laughlin are for nothing but the tension between the fab five. Though speaking of Emily’s twin, Rebecca and Thea continue to be the only LGBTQ+ characters with little to no mention outside of their service to the plot. I wouldn’t mention this if it weren’t for the fact that almost everything released now at least features someone that is of the group, even if it is mostly to bury them at some point.

With some teen drama which is often dominated by a lack of explanation for upcoming actions, there are some scenes that rub me the wrong way. Though it lasts only a short time, the crystal prison that the brothers put Avery in as a form of brotherly protection doesn’t sit well. It feels like a plot device to get someone out of the way (because it is) and this segment is an example of that teen drama trope of miscommunication being poorly handled. When the rest of Lynn Barnes’ writing is nicely pulling you along with non-stop action or mystery, it is quite puzzling and jarring.

Ultimately, despite my misgivings with The Final Gambit for the inheritance scenes towards the end, some teenage relationship drama throughout, and a few scenes lacking explanation or logical setup, it might just be the best of the series. At least it would be if it weren’t for how well done the setup of the first book was. It isn’t perfect, but it is a brilliant final puzzle for a very tricky gamble on the part of the elder Hawthorne that kicked this all off. That is until The Brothers Hawthrone releases and we (might) see some more tricks of the old man.