AudioARC review – The Hawthorne Legacy

From Goodreads:

The Inheritance Games ended with a bombshell, and now heiress Avery Grambs has to pick up the pieces and find the man who might hold the answers to all of her questions – including why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire fortune to Avery, a virtual stranger, rather than to his own daughters or grandsons.

Thanks to a DNA test, Avery knows that she’s not a Hawthorne by blood, but clues pile up hinting at a deeper connection to the family than she had ever imagined. As the mystery grows and the plot thickens, Grayson and Jameson, the enigmatic and magnetic Hawthorne grandsons, continue to pull Avery in different directions. And there are threats lurking around every corner, as adversaries emerge who will stop at nothing to see Avery out of the picture – by any means necessary.

I was really surprised and delighted when I got sent the AudioARC link for this book a little after publication. I really enjoyed the first book in the series, you can find my review here, but unfortunately I found this one was a little disappointing.

I felt that the Hawthorne boys got a little undersold in this one. No real additions were made to their character, which made them feel really static. They lost the mystery and romantic what ifs that the first book proposed. Instead just prolonged the love triangle angle through this entire book which just made it really stale and I couldn’t really care less who Avery choose in the end. The villians in this one were also a bit lack lustre, the big reveal just didn’t have impact for me. The plot was exciting to start with but as we progressed it started to stall and it became clear that we were not going to move the mystery of Avery and the Hawthorne’s any further forward. In fact after all the events in the book it just kind of felt we ended up back where we started with Avery having the Hawthorne fortune, no explanation as to why and no decision as to which of the Hawthorne boys to date. The pacing was also slow. There was a lot of waiting around and inner monologuing from Avery, then what action there was while exciting and engaging was over in a couple of pages.

I am not saying this wasn’t a fun read it was but it suffered very much from middle book syndrome. It served no purpose but to set up the mystery for book three and tie up some loose ends so that they can’t become questions in book three. I just wanted more.

In terms of the audiobook the narration was great. Moreau’s southern accents for the Hawthorne boys were a little hit and miss at times, it also made them difficult to tell apart on occasion, but otherwise she is a good narrator.