What would you actually do if a dead billionaire left you everything and you had zero idea why?
I've been sitting with that question since I started this series, and book two — Das Spiel geht weiter — just digs the knife in deeper. I was folding laundry during Sophie's nap (miracle of miracles, she actually went down for ninety minutes), and I literally stopped mid-fold on one of Lucas's tiny dinosaur shirts because Avery had just uncovered another layer of her connection to the Hawthorne family and my brain went "oh no, oh NO."
So here's the thing. German-language audiobook of an English-language YA thriller-romance. I know, I know. But Leonie Landa's narration is the reason I'm here, and she's worth talking about.
Leonie Landa Macht Das Ganze Zum Erlebnis
Landa has this warm, almost conspiratorial tone that works perfectly for Avery's first-person POV — like she's telling you a secret at a sleepover instead of reading from a script. She doesn't do wildly distinct character voices for each Hawthorne grandson, which could be a problem when you've got four scheming brothers running around, but her pacing shifts are what save it. When Jameson is being reckless and flirty, she speeds up just slightly, gets breathier. When Grayson goes cold and controlled, she drops into this measured, almost clipped delivery. It's subtle enough that you pick it up subconsciously, which is honestly what you want when you're also keeping one ear out for a toddler.
The actual narration is clean and pleasant — no weird audio artifacts, no jarring shifts. At 10 hours 45 minutes, it's a perfect weeklong listen for my schedule. I knocked it out in about six days between school drop-offs, nap windows, and yes, my sacred car-in-the-garage time.
The Puzzle Box Gets Trickier (But Not Too Tricky)
Barnes does this thing where she layers puzzles inside puzzles — Tobias Hawthorne's posthumous games, the family secrets, Avery's own backstory — and in book two, she starts pulling threads that connect them all. The big revelation about Avery's connection to the family? Not what I expected, and not the lazy "secret daughter" route I was bracing for. There's a scene where Avery finds a hidden message linked to her mother that reframes basically everything from book one, and I actually rewound thirty seconds to hear it again because I wanted to make sure I caught the details.
The romance between Avery and Jameson heats up here, but it's not the center of the story — it's more like the reward you get between puzzle segments. Think escape room energy with kissing breaks. And the new antagonists who show up wanting Avery gone add real stakes without turning it into something too dark for a 1 PM laundry-folding session. That balance of high-stakes scheming and just enough romance is something I also found in Then Came You, though the tone there skews a little more purely romantic if that's what you're after.
Now. Is this groundbreaking literature? No. The dialogue occasionally reads younger than I'd love — Avery is a teenager, and sometimes she sounds like one in ways that made this thirty-something wince. And the cliffhanger-ish ending clearly exists to sell book three (which, fine, it worked, I already have it queued up). But the plot moves fast enough that I never lost the thread despite my 47-pause lifestyle, and the mystery genuinely kept me guessing.
Who Gets the Inheritance (And Who Gets Cut Out)
If you loved the first Inheritance Games and want more Hawthorne brother chaos with higher emotional stakes, this delivers exactly that. If you enjoy YA mysteries with a romance subplot — like a smarter, richer version of a CW show — you'll eat this up. If you're specifically looking for Leonie Landa's narration in German, she's lovely here.
But if you haven't read book one, do NOT start here. You'll be completely lost. And if you need your mysteries to wrap up neatly in one volume, the series structure will frustrate you.
The Car Time Verdict
I finished the last hour parked in my driveway while my kids were inside with my husband, and I texted my one friend who reads YA: "This family is UNHINGED and I need book three immediately." Not groundbreaking, but sometimes you don't need groundbreaking. Sometimes you need a dead billionaire's puzzle box and four gorgeous grandsons competing for screen time while you hide in your minivan. Survived 47 pauses and still made sense. That's the highest compliment I can give.
