Thank you Penguin Teen Australia for this book in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis:

She came from nothing.
Avery has a plan: keep her head down, work hard for a better future.
Then an eccentric billionaire dies, leaving her almost his entire fortune. And no one, least of all Avery, knows why.

They had everything.
Now she must move into the mansion she’s inherited.
It’s filled with secrets and codes, and the old man’s surviving relatives –
a family hell-bent on discovering why Avery got ‘their’ money.

Now there’s only one rule: winner takes all.
Soon she is caught in a deadly game that everyone in this strange family is playing.
But just how far will they go to keep their fortune

Review:

This is one of those books that takes you completely by surprise.

To say that I was hooked from the first chapter would be an understatement, I was invested!

Avery needs to survive high school like every other teenager her age but that all changes when Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves his fortune to Avery and she doesn’t even know who he is. But there is a catch, to inherit the fortune she has to stay at this house where herself and the whole Hawthorne family, and solve puzzles and riddles.

To be unfair, I read the blurb and thought this might be just another teenage contemporary but my initial thoughts on this book were completely wrong and I was taken aback, which doesn’t happen very often.

The characters in this book were interesting, Avery was the strong and brave leading lady that I tend to root for and she does her best to survive the wit and struggles in the Hawthorne House. I love the development of the characters throughout the book as their need to pass the mystery and not give up, got stronger.

The only part that I wasn’t really a huge fan of, was the love triangle? I didn’t think it was necessary for the characters nor the plot.

At the end of the day, this book contained brilliant writing, a great plot and a page-turning mystery.

Rating: 4/5

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 9780241476178