Pretty Little Liars- Sara Shepard
Sara Shepard is the author of the bestselling book series 'Pretty Little Liars'. Even though Sara is so good at what she does she hasn't always wanted to be a writer. When she was younger she wanted to be a soap opera star, a LEGO designer, a filmmaker, a claymation artist, a geneticist and a fashion magazine editor. She has been writing for as long as she can remember starting with doing little writing stories with her sister. She got her Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) at Brooklyn College and now lives outside Philadelphia, PA. She lives with her husband and two dogs. Her first adult novel is called, 'The Visibles/ All the Things We Didn't Say'. Both Pretty Little Liars and her other young adult series, 'The Lying Game' have been made into TV shows on ABC Family.
Characters
Pretty Little Liars #1
The picture below is the cover of the first book in the series, titled simply, 'Pretty Little Liars'. All of the books in this series display a colourful background with a single Barbie girl on the cover. Each book has a different girl on it. The dolls are meant to represent the girl that the book will focus on or the girl that will have particular trouble in the book. This book displays Spencer Hastings. Spencer Hastings is the hard-working, Ivy League bound character of the series. The other girls are Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, Allison DiLaurentis and A. Aria is more of the punk in the group having moved to Iceland before eighth grade. Hanna is the popular one having gone through a remarkable makeover from being the overweight girl she was in seventh grade. Allison is the girl's best friend who was murdered the summer before eighth grade. And A is the person who sends the girls mysterious texts hinting at knowing the secrets that only Allison knew and threatening them, but sometimes giving them hints. I will probably also mention Ian, the older boy all the girls liked, Melissa, Spencer's sister, Darren Wilden, the local cop who went to school with the girls and graduated with Ian and Melissa; and Jason, Allison's older brother who also graduated with Melissa and Ian.
Synopsis
The story begins with five teenage girls who all become fast friends with the help of Allison DiLaurentis, the most popular girl in Rosewood. These girls are friends for the majority of a year and even though it is a short time these girls are inseparable. That is until Allison goes missing the summer before grade 8. The year that follows her disappearance Hanna, Spencer, Emily and Aria lose touch and are no longer friends. Everything changes when Allison's body is found in her family's old backyard under the unfinished gazebo they built that summer. The girls reconnect at the funeral where they find out they are all having the same problem. A, a mysterious person who leaves taunting texts for the girls, messages all of them 'I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything-A' at Allison's funeral. From then on the books display the acts of the girls trying to figure out who A is. Along the way A puts some twists and turns in for the girls by exposing the secrets which only Allison knew. The girls have to learn who to trust and who to watch out for. But most importantly they need to learn how to keep a secret.
Upcoming Books
Sara Shepard has not only written 13 books in the Pretty Little Liars series, she has also written another teen mystery series, 'The Lying Game'. This book has also been turned into a TV series featured on ABC Spark. The latest book in the Pretty Little Liars series, 'Burned', came out November 2012.