Books like “The Inheritance Games”

What to read after “The Inheritance Games” by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
Benjamin Stevenson · 2022
Similar plot moves: “Forced Proximity” and “Twist Ending”
- Forced Proximity
- Twist Ending
Crime-writing teacher Ernest Cunningham joins his family at a snowbound mountain lodge for his brother's release from prison. When a body turns up, Ernest decides to follow the rules of Golden Age detective fiction to work out which of his relatives is responsible.
2
The Selection
Kiera Cass · 2012
Same genre: “Young adult fiction”
- Rags to Riches
- Love Triangle
In a future kingdom divided into castes, thirty-five girls are chosen to compete for the crown. America Singer enters only for the money, torn between a secret love back home and the young prince she is slowly getting to know.
3
Throne of Glass
Sarah J. Maas · 2012
Same genre: “Young adult fiction”
- Love Triangle
- Forced Proximity
Celaena Sardothien, the kingdom's most notorious assassin, is dragged from a salt mine to compete in a contest for the king. Victory would buy her freedom, but the court is full of plots and her rivals will do anything. Between a prince and a guardsman, she searches for who she can trust.
4
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Holly Jackson · 2019
Same genre: “Young adult fiction” and “Mystery”
- Twist Ending
For a school project, Pip reopens the closed case of Andie Bell, a local girl murdered five years ago, and her boyfriend Sal, who confessed and then died. As she records interviews with the people involved, the tidy story everyone accepted begins to come apart.
5
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Jenny Han · 2014
Same genre: “Young adult fiction”
- Love Triangle
Lara Jean keeps private love letters to the boys she has liked, never meaning to send them. When the letters are mailed, she pretends to date one of the recipients to save face, and the game begins to feel real.
6
The Red and the Black
Stendhal · 1830
Similar plot moves: “Rags to Riches” and “Love Triangle”
- Rags to Riches
- Love Triangle
An ambitious young man from a poor family claws his way into high society, first through the church and then through his charm. Torn between two women and his own hunger for status, he risks everything. A novel about ambition, class and love.
7
We Were Liars
E. Lockhart · 2014
Similar plot moves: “Twist Ending”
- Twist Ending
Every summer Cadence joins her wealthy family on their private island, where she and three cousins form an unbreakable group. The summer she is fifteen something goes wrong, and Cadence returns two years later with gaps in her memory that she is desperate to fill.
8
Shatter Me
Tahereh Mafi · 2011
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle” and “Forced Proximity”
- Love Triangle
- Forced Proximity
Juliette's touch is lethal, so the world has locked her away. When a military faction offers her a chance to use her power, she must decide who to trust in a regime that would use her as a weapon.
9
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925
Similar plot moves: “Rags to Riches” and “Love Triangle”
- Rags to Riches
- Love Triangle
Long Island, the 1920s. Nick Carraway becomes neighbour to the wealthy, secretive Jay Gatsby, who throws lavish parties for a single purpose: to win back Nick's cousin Daisy, married to the brutish Tom Buchanan.
10
Looking for Alaska
John Green · 2005
Same genre: “Young adult fiction”
- Love Triangle
Miles Halter leaves his quiet Florida home for a boarding school in Alabama, drawn by the last words of famous people. There he joins a tight circle of friends, falls for the reckless Alaska Young, and is forced to reckon with loss and guilt.
11
An Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir · 2015
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle”
- Love Triangle
Under the Martial Empire, Laia's brother is arrested as a traitor, so she goes undercover as a slave in a brutal military academy to spy for the rebels. There she meets Elias, a reluctant soldier whose future is bound to the regime she works against.
12
Code Name Verity
Elizabeth Wein · 2012
Same genre: “Young adult fiction” and “Thriller”
- Twist Ending
A British wireless operator and a pilot become close friends before a mission goes wrong over occupied France. Captured by the Gestapo, the operator is forced to write down what she knows, and her account of the two women slowly reveals more than it first seems.