Wicked

“No bad deed goes unpunished.”

Sara Shepard’s Wicked is the fifth in the Pretty Little Liars series, and the mysteries just keep piling on.

After the identity of A is revealed, the girls finally believe their lives will go back to normal. Of course, they do have to testify to put Ali’s killer in jail. Once this is all over, Hanna, Emily, Spencer, and Aria will finally be safe.

Hanna had such a grand time with Lucas over winter break. Now that school is back in session, she realizes she can’t rule the school on her own. She performs the unthinkable act of befriending Kate, her soon-to-be stepsister. After all, Kate, Isabel (Hanna’s father’s fiancée), and Hanna’s father are all living under one roof, so what choice does she have? Hanna wants desperately to be on top and will do whatever it takes to get there.

Emily is so distraught over Ali’s death. All her emotions are resurfacing as Rosewood is finally facing the killer. Since Em doesn’t have Maya anymore to keep her company, she decides to spend some more time with her family. During a church fundraiser event, Emily meets Issac, a very handsome Christian boy. Terrified that her past will chase him away, she reveals her secrets, and finds herself a new boyfriend.

Spencer finds herself, once again, miserable living with her family. Even though she did the right thing in confessing about the Golden Orchid, her family seems to disown her. She is even cut out of her grandmother’s will. With the help of Andrew Campbell, the only person she ever had to compete with in her grade, Spencer comes one step closer to discovering the Hastings’ true family secrets.

Aria is once again in the good graces of her mother. When she meets Xavier at an art gallery, she thinks she will be able to move on from Ezra. He seems into her and is obviously interested in art, just like Aria. Things take a wicked turn when she finds out that her mom met Xavier on Match.com and fell head-over-heels for him. Embarrassed and a little disappointed, Aria decides to stay away from her mother’s new man, but he just can’t seem to leave Aria alone.

Yes, everything was finally going back to normal in Rosewood, until copycat A arises and Ali’s killer escapes…

Wicked brings Pretty Little Liars’ fans one step closer to the truth, but throws readers a bombshell with the discovery of a brand new A.

Unbelievable

“Don’t believe everything you hear.”

This next Pretty Little Liars book reveals some new information about the mystery behind A, and it is seriously unbelievable.

Things between Aria and her mother are still looking bad. Now that her mom knows the truth about Aria’s secret, she can’t even talk to her, let alone look at her. Because of A, Ezra is leaving, and her brother won’t even talk to her, either. Aria is forced to live with her father and Meredith in their cramped and creepy art-filled home. They encourage her to take an art course at the college, and Aria has partner in class she never would have imagined…

Hanna keeps going back to the day Ali went missing. She keeps trying to warn Ali about what will happen to her, but Ali keeps telling Han that she’s fine. When she finally wakes up from her dream, she can’t remember anything about Mona’s party. She doesn’t remember how Lucas saved her and she fell graciously into his arms. She doesn’t even remember the last text from A, which came from a phone number that looked very, very familiar…

The relationship between Spencer and her sister escalades, until their parents force the girls together to work out their differences. Spencer’s parents inform her that she will still go through with the Golden Orchid nomination, even though she stole her sister’s essay. The sisters come to an understanding and even begin to get along, but when Wilden comes to the Hastings’s house to question Melissa, Spencer worries if Ali’s killer was in front of her all along…

After Emily’s mom catches her with Maya, Emily is sent away to live with her aunt and uncle in a small, boring town in Iowa. Her cousins are so proper, polite, and innocent, that Em wonders how she will ever survive. When night comes, however, the cousins sneak out to a barn party where Emily meets Trista, a girl who looks eerily similar to her beloved Ali. After that, things with Maya seem very different, including the banana bubble gum smell…

While the girls try everything they can to help Hanna remember what she discovered about A, things become dangerously deadly when someone reveals all the threats the girls have been receiving. A warned them not to tell…

Unbelievable is yet another suspenseful novel from Sara Shepard that results in some shocking information about The Jenna Thing and, of course, the anonymity behind A.

Perfect

"It's not bragging if it's true."

Sara Shepard's Perfect reveals some shocking secrets that definitely prove nobody is perfect in Rosewood. Not even Spencer Hastings.

Spence begins going to a therapist, whom her mother calls, "the doctor". At first, she's a little apprehensive, especially because it is Melissa's therapist. Then after she goes through a session, she realizes she has found someone she can actually talk to about her irritable her sister really is. The one thing bothering her most is something that she can't reveal to anyone, even though she receives so much praise for it. Things become very strange when Spencer sees glimpes of a past she doesn't remember that has to do with Ali...

Emily lets her guard down and spends much more time with Maya. She definitely needs someone to talk to after the trauma she's been through. Swimming is going much better for her until something happens that she never imagined possible. Although she receives much more attention from the male population at school, things with her family have taken a turn for the worst. While being forced to become someone she's not, Em now has to worry about pleasing her parents in order to stay in Rosewood...

With Aria now in a steady relationship, she finally has someone to confess to about the terrible secret she's been holding on to. But since the cat is out of the bag, her mom hasn't been the same. Even after Aria tries to fight for her mom, she loses her home and is forced to move into her new boyfriend's house. All she ever wanted was to keep the relationship her family had when they were in Iceland. Ezra slowly works his way back into Aria's mind and things become a little bit easier to deal with...

Hanna always thought her life was perfect after she became friends with Mona. Now it's like a roller coaster ride with her best friend as the operator. Even after getting a helpful hint from A, Hanna still tries to hold onto their friendship and prepare for Mona's huge birthday party. Every time her life seems to be heading back in the right direction, someone pulls the carpet right out from under Hanna's feet. Her new friend, Lucas, comforts her, but she still hasn't heard from her dad, and A's texts become much more than threats...

While A was a little quite for a while, she came back with a forceful vengeance. The four girls' lives are falling apart with one secret revealed at a time, ending with a tragic accident no one sees coming.

Perfect brings along a shocking turn of events for the four best friends of Alison DiLaurentis.

Flawless

"Beauty is only skin deep."

Flawless, another Pretty Little Liars book by Sara Shepard, illustrates how every girl in Rosewood only wishes they could be flawless, one of them being Hanna Marin.

Once Hanna became best friends with Mona, they swore to each other that they would never lose their cool, always look fabulous, and never cry in public. With the way Hanna's life is going, it's a lot harder than it seems. She is forced to work in a burn clinic, and on top of that, Sean hasn't returned any of her phone calls. Hanna's father suddenly wants to spend more time with her. Not to mention A seems to know more about her than she thought...

Spencer's life couldn't get any crazier. Ever since Wren came into her life, things between the Hastings sisters went from bad to extremely worse. Her parents have completely stopped talking to Spencer and have even cancelled all her credit cards. She starts skipping classes and even some of her extracurriculars here and there. The good student record she's worked so hard for starts slipping through her fingers, and A is taunting her all the way...

Emily is more confused than ever. She thought she had it all figured out, but with her ex-boyfriend harassing her, she's too scared to even think. Wanting to return back to her normal life, she accepts the role of captain of the swim team, and she begins avoiding Maya completely. She even forms an unexpected relationship with Toby Cavanaugh, the only other person involved in The Jenna Thing. But nobody else knows about that. Nobody except A...

Aria sees her family falling apart more and more every day. With Ezra out of her life, she has no one to talk to anymore. Her brother, Mike, is even more distraught than she is after they come across their father with another woman in a bar. Things start to look a little brighter when she befriends Sean Ackard, one of the typical Rosewood boys she never thought she'd speak to. Aria confides in him, but still keeps the dreadful secret from her mother, despite A's threats...

All four girls are shaken up since the funeral. It's difficult to try and solve the mystery while preparing for the Foxy dance. They think they have a theory, but are they right?

Flawless is the second novel in the Pretty Little Liars series. More scandals and mysteries evolve as A continues to haunt the girls' every move.

Pretty Little Liars

"Never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret."

In Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard, the town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania is full of them. Best friends, Alison, Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna were the girls who had it all, including all the secrets. That is, until Ali disappears one night during the traditional beginning-of-the-summer sleepover.

Three years later with no leads on their missing friend, Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna live totally separate lives.

Emily is coerced by her mother to deliver a welcome basket to their new neighbors, the St. Germain's, the ones who moved into Ali's old home. This is when Emily meets Maya St. Germain, who turns her life upside down. Even though she has been with her boyfriend, Ben, for a while, Emily finds herself enjoying Maya's company much more...

Aria is returning to Rosewood from Iceland. Her family moved here a little while after Ali disappeared so Aria's father could do some research on Scandinavian art for a documentary. Aria blossoms and becomes a lot closer to her family. She even forgets about the terrible secret she's keeping from her mother. When she meets a cute new boy in town, things get complicated when she discovers out who Mr. Fitz really is...

Hanna is changed from head to toe, inside and out. As she is no longer "hefty Hanna," she and Mona, her best friend, enjoy their days shoplifting by day and partying at night. When Hanna gets caught by the police for the first time ever, her mom has to get involved. Then things with her boyfriend, Sean, turn sour. Slowly but surely, her life begins spiraling out of control as she resorts to her old ways of losing weight...

Spencer remains her typical competitive self; always trying to gain her parents approval, which is quite difficult with her perfect older sister, Melissa, hanging around. All Spence wants is some respect, independence, and the barn in the backyard to be hers. What she gets comes at a higher price when she starts to have feelings for Melissa's boyfriend Wren...

Only Alison knew all the girls' secrets, but she is gone. The girls are still being haunted by their old memories and ugly secrets by some furtive person named "A".

Pretty Little Liars is a delicious novel full of scandals and, of course, plenty of secrets. The mystery continues to unfold as this is just the first of eight in the series. Get caught up in the liars' torn and twisted worlds and try to uncover the mystery behind "A".

Sophie Kinsella

Most readers recognize the Confessions of a Shopaholic series as novels written by the author, Sophie Kinsella. In reality, however, these books are in fact written by Madeleine Wickham.

Born in London, Wickham began her career as a financial journalist just like Becky Bloomwood in the Shopaholic series. At the age of 24, she wrote her first novel titled The Tennis Party, which was the start of her career as a novelist.

Writing under her new penname, Sophie Kinsella, Wickham submitted to her current publishers, who immediately worked on getting Kinsella's works out into the public. The whole time, her editors never knew that Kinsella was actually already one of the publishers' authors. When her book, Can You Keep a Secret? came out, Wickham finally revealed her own secret.

This author has several novels written as Madeleine Wickham and several more as Sophie Kinsella, but all of them have been great successes written by one single woman. The Shopaholic series even led Wickham to the UK's bestseller list in 2000, and the first two novels were made into a movie.

Madeleine Wickham's penname story just goes to show that some secrets are indeed hard to keep!

http://www.sophiekinsella.co.uk/

Chasing Harry Winston

New York City is the city of love, adventure, and lots of hot, available (and unavailable, but still hot) single men. With glamorous parties full of new people, successful careers, and first-class shopping, what more can a girl need?

Lauren Weisberger's novel, Chasing Harry Winston, portrays all of the above, and more, in the adventures of three best friends chasing big dreams and resolutions in the big apple.

Leigh has always been the sensible, meticulous friend with the perfect career and the perfect man. She's satisfied with her editing career and is just on the verge of her biggest promotion when she meets Jesse Chapman, one of the biggest, most eminent novelists of the book world. She magically becomes the editor for his next book. With this and her caring, sensitive boyfriend, everyone can see that Leigh has it all.

Emmy thought she had it all after being with her idea of a "perfect" man for five years, until he dumps her out of left field for the personal fitness trainer that Emmy bought for him as a gift. How ironic. Struggling with missing her ex and trying to get over being out of a relationship, she takes on a new job offer that allows her the luxury of traveling and testing foods for new culinary ideas.

Adriana is clearly a brilliantly beautiful, Brazilian with the perfect hair, skin, and body girls can only dream of. With her parent's trust fund and their penthouse apartment, Adriana can spoil herself with anything she pleases, without worrying about how much she spends. She especiallly spoils herself when it comes to men, as she can catch and keep any man she wishes with her incredible talent.

After the girls spend a little time in a bar, they realize that not everything in their New York City lives is completely perfect. Emmy and Adriana decide to make a bet by completely switching roles in the case where men are concerned.

Since Leigh is already jet-set with her man, she doesn't feel she quite needs a resolution except to change something significant in her seamlessly organized life, which neither Emmy nor Adriana expect will happen.

As the New Year begins, the girls' resolutions commence, and each is surprised with what she discovers.

Chasing Harry Winston is a page-turner that can't be put down and will entertain, shock, and make its readers laugh along with the characters as they fulfill their crazy resolutions. Definitely a great book to read, this story of friendship and finding a place in the world of NYC, might even make readers want to come up with their own resolutions in the name of love.