The Inheritance Games Books

Begin with the four numbered Inheritance Games novels: The Inheritance Games, The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit, and The Brothers Hawthorne.

For the wider saga, continue with The Grandest Game, Games Untold, Glorious Rivals, The Same Backward as Forward, and The Gilded Blade. Games Untold is a story collection and The Same Backward as Forward is a two-sided companion novel; neither needs an invented number in the four-book main series.

Sources: Hachette's official Inheritance Games reading order, Hachette's Grandest Game trilogy list.

These are twist-heavy young-adult mysteries with past murders and deaths, threats involving guns and knives, kidnapping, explosions, injuries, grief, and abusive or neglectful family histories. The puzzles are playful, but characters' lives are frequently at stake.

Romantic tension, jealousy, kissing, and complicated wealthy-family power dynamics run throughout. The spinoff and companions reveal outcomes and relationships from the first four novels, which is why publication order matters even when a later book sounds like a separate game or love story.