Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is an American young-adult author best known for The Inheritance Games trilogy, following Avery Grambs, an ordinary teenager who inherits a vast fortune from a stranger and must unravel a puzzle-box mystery embedded in his mansion and family to understand why. The series, beginning with The Inheritance Games in 2020, combines elaborate riddle- and puzzle-driven plotting with wealthy-family intrigue and romantic subplots, and became a major bestseller, particularly popular on BookTok, spawning the continuation series The Grebe Sisters.

Barnes holds a doctorate in psychology and has written extensively across YA genres before The Inheritance Games, including the Naturals series (following teenage profilers assisting the FBI) and the Debutantes and Ivy Lexicon books, generally favoring puzzle-plot mysteries and found-family dynamics. She has also worked as a story consultant and writer for young-adult-adjacent television projects. New readers should start with The Inheritance Games, since its central mystery and Avery's relationships build continuously across the trilogy and its sequel series. No film or television adaptation of The Inheritance Games has been produced to date, though the series' popularity has made it a frequently discussed adaptation candidate.