This book review is going to be weird because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about The Inheritance by Cassie Cole. Here’s what I mean. The storyline is hella entertaining, but I absolutely could not stand one of the main characters. So much so that I wondered, throughout the reading of this book, if the author meant to write a wholly unlikable character to add to the suspense and mystery; similar to the idea of an unreliable narrator kind of device. Does that make sense? Ok let me get into the premise and then we can discuss.

We open the story with four characters: Robyn (the caretaker), Chase (the gardener), Xander (the lawyer), and Brody (the great-grandson) all converging on the mansion of the incredibly wealthy Alistair Schriebner, who has, mere hours ago, passed away. After identifying the body, Xander invites Robyn, Chase, and Brody to the house for the reading of the will, as instructed by Alistair’s pre-prepared documents. A pirate chest is revealed that Xavier has to chip open and inside is the will. As Xavier reads, we learn that from this moment forward, three of the characters are now involved in a game to win the entire Shreibner fortune. The rules? They have to remain on the property in a last person standing…er…stand off. The last person remaining at the end will receive the inheritance. They cannot skirt around the rules by damaging the property (aka moving the perimeter fence to extend the definition of property) nor can they inflict harm on the other game players. Xaiver is also to remain as a judge of the event, ensuring that everything remains on the up and up.

As you can imagine, shenanigans ensue. The game gets more and more complex as the story progresses. There are secrets, lies, and clues. And not just about the game either. The characters have their own backstories that play into the unreliability of it all. As I said in the beginning of this review: hella entertaining. I LOVED the premise of this book. The game aspect with mysteries revealed and exciting twists, created a “who-done-it” type of feel that made me want to keep reading to find everything out. The twists with the characters were actually surprising – I wasn’t able to predict much as I went along, which was so fun.

Now for the negative. I abhorred Robyn. She was, as one Amazon reviewer claimed, insufferable. She was very “pick me”, but at the same time, “I don’t deserve to be picked”, which just made me want her to get over it already. The book was so good, though, that I was able to just deal with her as I went along, but geez, she sucked. But like I mentioned above, if the author meant to write Robyn in this way, honestly, that’s genius. It transformed her into an unreliable narrator, which only added an element of mystery to an already mysterious plot.

This book is billed as a “reverse harem” or, the more PC term we use these days, “why choose”. I mean, I guess that’s true? But it seemed more like forced proximity with some horny people, who just want to bang Robyn to pass the time. I didn’t get a sense of true attraction amongst the group or even a sense of togetherness that I get in other why choose romances, where, by the end, they seem like a cohesive family, less than a collection of partners, who sleep with the same person. Am I complaining? No. The spice was fun and broke up the game play a bit.

In the end, I gave this book a 4.25/5, mainly because of Robyn, to be honest. Would I recommend this book, even though she sucks? Absolutely. It’s fun, engaging, and unpredictably twisty. If you’re interested in this or any other of Cassie Cole’s works, feel free to check out her website. If you’ve read this book, let me know in the comments below what you thought!