Review for Author Sara Shephard

Emma grows up in foster home after foster home, after her irresponsible and possibly mentally ill mother goes off on a “little trip” when Emma is 5 years old and never returns.  She finds, completely coincidentally, that there is a girl who looks identical to her. She reaches out by e-mail to this girl, and gets a response inviting her to meet up at Sabino Canyon in Tucson.  When Emma gets there, she runs into some friends of her sister, Sutton. But Sutton never does show up, and Emma is forced into pretending to be Sutton in order to save her own life.  She’s desperately trying to find out what happened to Sutton, while at the same time realizing that Sutton’s pet invention, the Lying Game, has won her a lot of enemies.  Emma doesn’t know who to trust. Meanwhile, Sutton’s ghost is hovering around her, trying to help as much as she can, which isn’t much.  There is no resolution because it is meant to be a series. It has the same old pat conventions: the mysterious twins (separated and don’t know about each other’s existence); poor girl has to assimilate overnight into a wealthy and privileged family without anyone knowing; someone knows the truth but she doesn’t know who it is.  And on and on and on. Also, most–not all–of the characters aren’t very likeable, and some are downright detestable.