Glorious Rivals

Published in 2025, Glorious Rivals is a young adult mystery by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. It is the second installment in The Grandest Game series, following The Grandest Game (2024). The trilogy is a spin-off of her #1 New York Times bestselling saga, The Inheritance Games. Barnes draws on her academic background in psychology and cognitive science to craft novels known for their intricate puzzles, high-stakes competition, and complex character motivations. The novel follows the competitors in a lavish contest on the Hawthorne family’s private island, exploring themes including The Inescapable Influence of Family History, The Fragility of Trust in a World of Competition, and Cultivating Awareness of Deeper Games and Hidden Agendas.

This guide is based on the 2025 Little, Brown and Company edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of death by suicide, graphic violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

Glorious Rivals, the second book in The Grandest Game trilogy, begins where the first novel, The Grandest Game, left off. Game contestants Lyra Kane, Brady Daniels, Knox Landry, Odette Morales, Grayson Hawthorne, Rohan, and Gigi and Savannah Grayson have completed the first phase of Avery Grambs’s Grandest Game, forming alliances to solve the puzzles, even though they know they will eventually be competing against each other. Although Gigi and Knox have lost, Odette has given her spot to Gigi, ensuring her continuing participation in the game. However, at the end of the first book, Gigi was kidnapped by a mysterious man.

An unnamed woman, implied to be connected to Grayson’s grandmother, Alice Hawthorne, reflects on her careful manipulation of the Grandest Game, ensuring it reaches her desired conclusion without revealing her hand.

As the novel opens, Lyra and Grayson are sharing their first kiss. Afterward, she tells him it was a mistake, citing the mysteries surrounding her father’s death and its undefined connection to Alice. Although they are given time to rest before phase two of the competition begins, Lyra decides to go for a run alone, reasserting her independence and reaffirming her goal to win the prize money to save her family home, Mile’s End. At a boathouse dock, she feels an unsettling sensation of being watched. 

Meanwhile, Grayson uses his player smartwatch to arrange a meeting with his brother, Nash Hawthorne. He warns Nash of a potential threat, revealing that Lyra has an anonymous sponsor for the game, and that person may be connected to their family’s past. He also confirms that Gigi Grayson, his half-sister, is missing and confesses his deep feelings for Lyra. 

Elsewhere, Rohan and his ally, Grayson’s half-sister and Gigi’s twin, Savannah Grayson, navigate their distrustful partnership. Rohan reveals that he needs to win the prize money so that he can pay the £10 million fee to become the next Proprietor of a secret society called the Devil’s Mercy.

Gigi wakes up in a locked stone room, kidnapped by a mysterious man she nicknames “Mimosas.” Her captor, who reveals only part of his name, Slate, claims he is protecting her from his employer, Eve, and another threat on the island. Eve is the Hawthorne brothers’ cousin, daughter of Toby Hawthorne, and has an as-yet-undefined stake in the game.

Before the next phase begins, the remaining players (Lyra, Grayson, Rohan, Savannah, and Brady) gather for a bonfire. Savannah warns Lyra that Grayson will always choose his family over her. Brady proposes an alliance with Lyra, but Rohan intervenes. Grayson’s brother, Jameson Hawthorne, confronts Grayson, warning him that Lyra is a threat and forbidding him from investigating their grandmother Alice’s connection to Lyra’s past.

Phase two begins. The first puzzle in the Great Room involves a massive domino display and golden darts. Lyra and Grayson discover a repeating pattern that connects the dominoes to their glass dice, given to them at the beginning of the game.

Meanwhile, Gigi continues questioning Slate and suspects that Eve has sponsored Savannah’s participation in the game, telling her that the Hawthornes are responsible for their father’s death, which they thought would motivate her. After overhearing Slate’s phone call with Eve, Gigi tries to escape the lighthouse where she is being held, but Slate recaptures and ties her up before leaving on a “job.”

Back in the games, Lyra and Grayson solve the dart clue, which leads them to the helipad. They use their team’s sword as a key to sign the first electronic ledger, documenting that they solved the puzzle. Rohan and Savannah also solve the puzzle and discover the next clue by dipping their room keys in a chemical solution, revealing the letters V, I, I, I, L. 

At the helipad, someone leaves a fresh calla lily for Lyra, a flower tied to her traumatic memories. Brady arrives, suggests the flower might be for him, and shows Lyra a photo of a girl named Calla before giving her a hint. The hint leads Lyra and Grayson to a large clock, where they solve a Roman numeral puzzle (VIII, L) and find the next ledger and two silver music boxes. The music boxes contain marble calla lilies, triggering a traumatic memory for Lyra. She remembers a new fragment of the night of her father’s death: a woman’s voice saying, “You…”

At midnight, the players are summoned to a superyacht. After Lyra and Grayson share another kiss, she confesses that Eve was her sponsor and offered her millions to lose the game and break Grayson’s heart. Grayson confronts his family, and a fight with Jameson ensues. Jameson reveals he was drugged in Prague a year ago and met a supposedly dead Alice Hawthorne, who threatened him. They realize the game must continue for them to solve this mystery.

On the yacht, Rohan and Savannah find new hints, and Rohan learns from Jameson that he wants Lyra disqualified. Grayson helps Lyra solve a puzzle involving an infinity symbol on their masks, which reveals the words “Time Signatures.” Rohan overhears Brady offering Savannah proof of her father’s death if she eliminates Rohan from the game. The players are flown back to the island by Toby Hawthorne, Grayson’s uncle and Eve’s father.

Rohan and Savannah use the time signatures from the music box songs (3/4, 4/4, 9/8) to open a marble vault door, where they find compasses with a new riddle. After they leave, Lyra and Grayson solve the same puzzle. Grayson confirms to Lyra that Savannah is likely also working with Eve, who is manipulating her grief. 

The compass riddle leads both teams to the forest. There, Grayson confronts Savannah, telling her the truth about their father: He was a murderer who died while trying to kill Avery. Meanwhile, Rohan and Lyra discover a buried plaque with another riddle and a small hole for a dart tip, but they are unable to solve the puzzle. 

Brady arrives, and Rohan goads him into a fight. He discovers a tattoo on Brady’s arm with a coded message: “ROHAN MUST LOSE.” He realizes Brady’s sponsor is his rival for control of the Devil’s Mercy, a woman known as “the Duchess.”

Slate and Eve return to where Gigi is being held, but all three of them are captured by a mysterious figure. They are confronted first by Calla Thorp, the “Woman in Red,” who calls herself “the Watcher.” After Eve reveals information about Lyra’s connection to Alice, Calla leaves. She is replaced by another woman, Zella (the Duchess), who reveals that Calla is her sister before releasing them.

At nightfall, the plaque riddle becomes solvable, as it spells out “ONLY AT NIGHT” (316). The players return and, after using their darts to open it and sign the ledger, they see the next clue in the sky: “LIE.” Lyra, upset to learn that Grayson has been deceiving her to protect his family, solves the clue alone at the boathouse by realizing the docks form the shape of the letters. Grayson finds her, and they reconcile just as hundreds of calla lilies appear floating in the ocean. A message on their smartwatches announces that a player has reached the final puzzle. 

The next clue, an Emily Dickinson poem, leads the players to a platinum gear in the library, which opens a gear-covered door. Inside, players must “pay a toll.” Savannah uses a platinum chain she found early in the competition, while Rohan uses his collected game charms. In the final chamber, Savannah and Rohan realize the last puzzle requires both their sets of glass dice. Rohan gives his dice to Savannah, allowing her to win.

Savannah is declared the winner, but the screen that was intended to show the game makers is empty. Grayson realizes something is wrong. Security arrives to extract the players, revealing that Avery is missing. 

On the yacht, a distraught Jameson blames Lyra and Grayson for Avery’s disappearance and punches Grayson. Alisa Ortega, the family lawyer, reveals that Avery left a note, stating she was not missing. Jameson offers Rohan £10 million to help find Avery by investigating Zella in Prague. 

Gigi and Savannah reunite, and Rohan approaches Gigi to propose an alliance. Lyra and Grayson find Odette Morales, who explains the existence of a secret society of three women: The Lily (Calla), The Omega (The Hand, likely Alice), and The Monoceros (The Judge, unknown). She warns that the calla lilies signify that a major event is imminent. 

In the final scene, Avery wakes up alone in a seamless white room with a complex maze etched into every surface.