The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Barnes, Jennifer Lynn. The Hawthorne Legacy. Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Sept. 21, 2021. Kindle.

In the mystery novel The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, the second novel in The Inheritance Games series, Avery Kylie Grambs has wondered why Tobias Hawthorne chose her as the sole inheritor of his estate. Avery believed she might have found her answer when information suggested that Toby Hawthorne, Tobias’s adopted son, was her father. To Avery’s disappointment, Toby turned out not to be her father, but she learned her mother and Toby had once been lovers. Toby had assisted in Avery’s birth and thought of her as a daughter.

Avery, along with the Hawthorne brothers, Grayson, Jameson, and Xander, join forces to solve a new mystery. Tobias issued Xander a challenge to locate Toby, the boys’ uncle they believed had died in a fire before they were even born. Avery believed Toby was the same man as Harry, a homeless man with whom she had played chess in the park immediately after her mother’s death. She believed he was perhaps her father, answering the question of why Tobias left his money to her, when she saw Toby’s handwriting and realized the father’s signature on her birth certificate had been written by him.

After Avery, Grayson, Jameson, and Xander followed all of Tobias’s clues, they were given access to the actual police report from the fire in which Toby and three of his friends were believed to have died. Toby’s body, however, had never been recovered. Toby had been angry with his father for lying to him about being adopted when he decided to get revenge on his father by burning down the house on Hawthorne Island. The police report showed that while Toby had soaked the house in accelerant and turned on the gas, no one had struck a match. A flash of lightening ignited the fire. Tobias’s private investigator was able to learn that Toby was found by a fisherman and nursed back to health.

It appeared Tobias believed Avery was Toby’s daughter and attempted to lure him out of hiding by leaving Avery his estate. Tobias did not know that while Avery’s mother, Hannah, and Toby fell in love with each other while Hannah was helping to nurse Toby back to health, that Toby was not Avery’s father. Toby had visited Hannah the night Avery was born during a hurricane. The ambulance was unable to reach Hannah so Toby delivered Avery. Toby signed the name of Avery’s biological father, Ricky Grambs, to her birth certificate.

Tobias was not the only person who used Avery as a tool to lure Toby out. Sheffield Grayson, the uncle of one of the boys killed in the fire, first planted a bomb that seriously injured Avery, and then kidnapped her in an attempt to speak to Toby face to face. Sheffield teamed up with Mellie and Eli, two members of the Hawthorne House staff, siblings whose younger sister, Eve, was Toby’s biological daughter. They believed Avery’s inheritance should have gone to Eve, but Toby was not aware Eve was his daughter.

When Sheffield confronted Toby and made it clear he intended to kill both Toby and Avery, Mellie shot and killed Sheffield. She said that she and Eli had not wanted to hurt anyone, they just wanted Eve to be taken care of. Toby promised he would meet with Eve privately. He did not want her taken to Hawthorne House because he did not want her to suffer the publicity and threats that Avery had suffered. While Toby acknowledged he was not Avery’s biological father, Toby confirmed that he had always thought of her as his daughter.