REVIEW for Lying Game

I love HarperCollins Canada - they are so generous with their books!  Thank you, thank you!

TITLE:           The Lying Game

AUTHOR:      Sara Shepard

GENRE:          YA
RATING:         4 Stars

I had never read any of Sara Shepard’s books before, mainly because I never seem to find any good YA novels that offer up a good mystery. In fact, I have stopped reading mysteries and thrillers in general for the same reason – after awhile, they all start to sound the same.


Fortunately, I can say that while Shepard’s storyline is not particularly original, it is a lot of fun to read, which made me breeze through The Lying Game in basically a few days.

Our main character is Emma – who is basically a foster kid who has seen her share of hardship, mainly thanks to the fact that she has pretty well been sent from one foster home to the other. Of course, at the polar opposite is Sutton who has lived a charmed life but encounters a sad end.

What follows is an entertaining story in which Emma discovers that she has a lot more in common with Sutton and will actually be asked to impersonate her. Throughout the storyline, the mystery of Sutton’s death and the fact that someone (the murderer????) knows very well that Emma is not Sutton and yet, Sutton is still around in ‘ghost’ form.


The author does a fine job of showing just how opposite the two characters are and manages to keep the suspense moving along at a good clip – without giving up the ghost (so to speak) and giving us the solution to the mystery too early in the game.


The Emma character is great and very likeable and the Sutton character is perfect as the ‘other’ less likeable sister.

I enjoyed this book and will probably end up reading the rest of the series front and back.