The title lies a little. The Inheritance Games is the first book in an eponymous trilogy (the third book isn’t out yet, argh!) and Truly Devious is the first book in an eponymous trilogy plus a standalone with the same main character.

But that was too long to put in the title.

(Also, “eponymous” is a really nifty word.)

I’m grouping these together because the books have similarities, I discovered them at about the same time, and I devoured the first in each series so quickly I had to reread them to catch all the things I missed, before I could go on to future books.

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes has been compared to the movie Knives Out, the book We Were Liars(previously recommended here), and the works of Maureen Johnson, who wrote…the Truly Devious books! The blurb:

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why – or even who Tobias Hawthorne is.

 To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he’s determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather’s last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.

So many Dayle Reader Cookies: puzzles, riddles, and codes, oh my! Secret passageways! A smart, competent, kind, but flawed heroine! ::munches through the books like Cookie Monster::

That’s about all I can say without giving things away. Just writing about the book makes me want to read it a third time (and I first read it in November or December).

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson also contains the above Dayle Reader Cookies (unsurprisingly), but the setting is an isolated private school just outside Burlington, VT, an area I’ve been to numerous times, having grown up across Lake Champlain from Burlington. Here are the deets:

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists.

 It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”

 Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

 True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.

The only thing I’d argue with in the above blurb is the list of housemates. They can’t really be each summed up with one word. As the letter in The Breakfast Club says, “Each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?”

The novelist, for example, is an introvert with an aversion to being touched, which Stevie respects, always asking before she gets too close to him. He’s also screwed up because his first book, written when he was in his earlier teens, was an instant bestseller, and he hasn’t been able to write since. (Oh, I understand that pressure!)

Anyway. An important thing to mention is that the mystery/ies are not resolved until the end of the third book. I found the first two perfectly satisfying, but I got suspicious towards the end of Truly Devious when it became obvious there weren’t enough pages left to solve things. However, I was delighted there were more books! Just buy them all or get them all out of the library at the same time, so you don’t have to wait to read the next one.

By contrast, The Inheritance Games books each have a different mystery that builds on the previous ones (at least, the second book does. Did I mention the third book isn’t out yet? Argh!)

If you share the same reader cookies, Dayle says to get these books into your hot little hands and plan ahead for the time to read them voraciously.

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