The Inheritance Games Chapters 1–9 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 1

The novel’s narrator, seventeen-year-old Avery Grambs, begins by explaining that games have been a staple in her life, as her mother (who died around Avery’s fifteenth birthday) would use them to get through difficult times. This reflection brings the reader to the present where Avery is playing a game of chess in the park. Her opponent, a homeless man named Harry, loses, and she buys him breakfast before rushing off to school. Avery is perplexed when the principal calls her into his office and accuses her of cheating on a notoriously difficult physics test. To make matters worse, Principal Altman uses her unstable living situation to justify his accusations. Avery demands to retake the test at that very moment to prove him wrong.

Chapter 2

Avery returns home to the apartment she shares with her older half-sister, Libby, and presents her with a fistful of tip money from her evening shift at the diner. Libby, who is endlessly generous, resists taking it and offers Avery a fresh-baked muffin. When Avery spots the cupcakes on the counter behind her, she realizes that something bad must be going on. Libby’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Drake, waltzes into the kitchen to Avery’s dismay. He immediately begins talking down to both her and Libby, and she declares that she is going to live in her car to avoid him.

Chapter 3

Avery parks her old Pontiac out of sight behind the diner. She cannot bring herself to answer her sister’s texts, so she reaches out to her best friend, Max, instead. As she waits for a reply, Avery pulls out a stack of postcards, from her mother, of places they had hoped to travel to one day. Although Max moved away in the eighth grade, she quickly responds with fury about Drake’s return and then calls to ask if Avery is okay. Avery tells her that somehow, she always manages to survive.

Chapter 4

Avery is in English class when an office aide calls her down to the principal’s office. She assumes that her retake test has been graded, but she is surprised to see Libby sitting inside. When Avery asks if something is wrong with her father, a young man’s voice responds. The boy sitting at the principal’s desk, dressed in a suit, introduces himself as Grayson Hawthorne and explains that he is delivering a message on behalf of his grandfather’s attorneys. His grandfather, billionaire philanthropist Tobias Hawthorne, named Avery in his will. Avery is perplexed as to why a complete stranger would leave anything to her, and although she is skeptical, Libby convinces her to travel to Texas for the reading of the will.

Chapter 5

While on the plane to Texas, Avery researches Tobias Hawthorne and is shocked to discover that his net worth is 46.2 billion dollars. A young woman dressed in a white pantsuit meets Avery and Libby at the airport, and she introduces herself as Alisa Ortega of the law firm McNamara, Ortega, and Jones. She explains that if they need anything during their time with the Hawthornes, she will take care of it. While Avery cannot get any information from Alisa about the contents of the will, she gets the sense that the Hawthornes are like family to Alisa.

Chapter 6

Avery can hardly believe her eyes when they arrive at the massive Hawthorne House. Grayson meets Avery, Libby, and Alisa in the foyer and, after taking their coats, presses a series of panels on the wall to open a coat closet. A figure pops out from behind the coats, revealing himself to be none other than Alexander Hawthorne. Grayson explains that Xander is the youngest of the four Hawthorne brothers, and Xander casually mentions that the coat closet is one the house’s many secret passageways.

Chapter 7

Xander pulls Libby away while Grayson preemptively apologizes to Avery for his brothers’ behavior. Avery asks him about the other boys, and Grayson is in the middle of responding when his flamboyant mother, Skye, enters the room. As she eagerly begins asking Avery questions, Grayson attempts to reign her in. Grayson’s aunt, Zara Hawthorne-Calligaris, walks into the foyer as well. She is the complete opposite of Skye, formal and uptight. The group prepares to head into the Great Room for the reading of the will, and Skye describes Grayson as the “heir apparent.”

Chapter 8

Grayson escorts Avery and Libby to two chairs before standing with the lawyers. Soon after, Xander arrives and introduces Avery and Libby to Nan, his great-grandmother and mother-in-law of Tobias Hawthorne. She also catches sight of a boy who she presumes to be Nash Hawthorne, the oldest of the boys. Avery can feel the weight of the grief that hangs in the air, and, reminded of her mother’s death, she steps outside to collect herself. As she admires the grounds, a voice from behind offers a riddle. She turns around and is surprised to find a shirtless boy balancing on top of a narrow balcony railing. He asks if she is the “Mystery Girl,” and when she tries to introduce herself, he leaps off the balcony and lands beside her. Avery realizes that this is Jameson Hawthorne.

Chapter 9

Avery returns to the Great Room and finds that Jameson has appeared as well, now fully dressed. Mr. Ortega, one of the lawyers, begins reading the will while two others hand out letters from Tobias Hawthorne. The will reveals that he left one hundred thousand dollars each to the Laughlins, an older couple who work as caretakers of the house, as well as a lifetime of rent-free tenancy in a cottage on the property. John Oren, the head of Mr. Hawthorne’s security detail, receives a toolbox and three hundred thousand dollars while Nan inherits one hundred thousand dollars a year, additional funds for medical expenses, and all of her daughter’s jewelry. Mr. Hawthorne’s daughters are listed next, and they are shocked to receive only money to pay off debts, a single family heirloom each, and a one-time payment of fifty thousand dollars. Tension builds as Mr. Ortega reveals that the grandsons will each receive two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on their twenty-fifth birthdays. The rest of Tobias Hawthorne’s 46.2 billion dollar fortune goes to Avery.

Next section Chapters 10–17