The Lying Game
Identical twins who have never met, a mean-girl crowd with more money than morals, a stoic foster kid, and a beyond-the-grave narrator all propel readers into a roller-coaster ride of physical and emotional challenges in this first book in a new series. Foster kid Emma, two weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, discovers she has a twin named Sutton and runs away from Las Vegas to meet her in Tucson. Sutton, however, seems to have been killed during the making of a snuff film. Narrating from the afterlife, Sutton cannot remember exactly who killed her, or much else about her life, as she watches her living twin try to solve the mystery. Shepard does a fast and thorough job of getting readers to suspend disbelief and go along for an adventure through a nasty underbelly of adolescent peer pressure and rebellion. Only toward the end does it become apparent that the platform is being prepared for the launch of a forthcoming second volume. Grades 9-12. --Francisca Goldsmith