Pretty Little Liars #04: Unbelievable

Behind Rosewood's grand façades, where the air smells like apples and Chanel No. 5 and infinity pools sparkle in landscaped backyards, nothing is as it seems. It was here, back in seventh grade, that five best friends shared everything—Seven jeans, MAC makeup, and their deepest, darkest secrets. For Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily, it was a dream come true . . . until Alison, the most beautiful of them all, suddenly vanished.

Now someone named A has turned their charmed lives into a living nightmare. Emily has been shipped off to her hyper-conservative cousins in Iowa. Aria is stuck living with her dad and his home-wrecker girlfriend. And Spencer fears she had something to do with Alison's murder. But Hanna's fate is far worse than all of that—she's clinging to life in the hospital, because she knew too much.

With A's threats turning dangerous and Ali's killer still on the loose, the girls must uncover the truth—about A, about Ali, and about what happened to Hanna—before they become A's next victims. But as they unravel Rosewood's mysteries and secrets, will it bring an end to the horror . . . or is this just the beginning?

"After the queen bee of their clique mysteriously disappears during a slumber party on the last day of seventh grade, the remaining four girls drift apart. Now, three years later, the Rosewood, Pa., former pals are practically strangers, but still plagued by the secrets that they shared with Alison — and new scandals they are trying to keep under wraps. Then they each start receiving cryptic messages from someone named 'A' who seems to know everything, and makes them wonder, 'Was she back?' The four girls are fairly standard types: there is free-spirited Aria, overachiever Spencer, good-girl Emily, a star swimmer, and glamorous Hanna. Their scandals, too, echo the over-the-top fare typical of guilty pleasure books: Aria is having an affair with her new AP English teacher, for example, while Emily finds that kissing a girl 'felt a zillion times different than kissing' her boyfriend. Readers will certainly find enough drama to keep the pages turning (one girl battles bulimia, another steals her sister's boyfriend — and then there's what's buried in Alison's old backyard), and they will no doubt have fun piecing together who and what could be behind those bizarre messages. This is clique lit with a mystery twist: the author has spun a plethora of possibilities sure to make readers reach for the next installment in this planned four-book series — and beyond. Ages 14-up." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

All is revealed in this jaw-dropping conclusion to the Pretty Little Liars teen series.

Sara Shepard graduated from NYU and has an MFA from Brooklyn College. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. Sara's Pretty Little Liars novels were inspired by her upbringing in Philadelphia's Main Line.