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The Lying Game Books in Order

Part ofSara Shepard Books in Order

See every title in Sara Shepard's The Lying Game series, including novellas, with reading order, plot overviews, and help choosing where to begin Sutton and Emma's story.

Last updated: June 7, 2026

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Publication Order

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8 books

1

The Lying Game

by Sara Shepard

2010

Foster kid Emma Paxton discovers an identical twin she never knew, Sutton Mercer, only to arrive in Arizona and find Sutton missing and a stranger demanding she take her place while she hunts for her sister’s killer.

2

Never Have I Ever

by Sara Shepard

2011

Still pretending to be Sutton, Emma juggles school, friends and cruel Lying Game traditions while fresh clues drag her into desert parties, family scandals and close calls with a killer who always seems one step ahead.

3

Hide and Seek

by Sara Shepard

2012

New clues in Sutton’s murder send Emma beyond Tucson and deeper into the Mercer family’s secrets, where every ally looks suspect and the Lying Game’s elaborate pranks start to blur with the killer’s own twisted sense of fun.

4

The First Lie

by Sara Shepard

2012

This digital prequel shows how Sutton’s supposed prank on her best friend’s brother Thayer turns into a secret romance, marking the first real lie that sets the deadly Lying Game in motion.

5

Two Truths and a Lie

by Sara Shepard

2012

Emma is sure Thayer Vega holds the key to Sutton’s death, but as she digs into her twin’s forbidden relationship with him, she risks exposing her own identity and provoking a dangerous new move from the person watching them both.

6

Cross My Heart, Hope to Die

by Sara Shepard

2013

Emma has grown frighteningly good at living Sutton Mercer’s life, but when their birth mother Becky suddenly reappears in Tucson, buried lies surface and Emma must pick apart her family’s past before the killer uses Becky to expose her.

7

Seven Minutes in Heaven

by Sara Shepard

2013

In the final Lying Game novel, Sutton’s body is discovered and Emma becomes the prime suspect in her twin’s murder, forcing her to unmask the real killer before the police, or the person who ended Sutton’s life, silence her for good.

8

True Lies

by Sara Shepard

2013

In this prequel novella, Sutton Mercer reels after her secret boyfriend Thayer disappears, rebounds with handsome Garrett and battles her sister Laurel for control of the Lying Game, turning a summer of pranks into something far more personal.

Series background & context

This corner of Sara Shepard's world collects everything tied to The Lying Game, from the core six novels to shorter digital stories that flash back to Sutton's life before the murder.

The novellas focus entirely on Sutton. In The First Lie she discovers that her best friend's younger brother Thayer has returned from camp transformed, and a supposed prank becomes the start of a secret romance. True Lies finds her reeling when that romance implodes and her little sister Laurel tries to claw her way into the Lying Game clique by challenging Sutton at her own tricks.

Read together with the main series, these pieces show how easily Sutton uses people, how quickly harmless games can turn cruel and why so many classmates have grudges by the time Emma arrives in Tucson. They add extra layers to her friendships with Madeline and Charlotte and to the simmering tension inside the Mercer household.

You do not need the novellas to follow Emma's story, but they enrich the mystery and make Sutton feel like more than a beautiful girl on a missing poster. Many readers like to read them between the later books, once they already care about the characters and want to see the events that everybody keeps hinting at.

Whether you move straight through the series or dip back for these extras, The Lying Game as a whole delivers sun soaked, high stakes drama about identity, sisterhood and the dangerous thrill of testing how far a lie can go before it breaks. It sits somewhere between classic boarding school mystery and small town soap opera, with cliffhangers that make the next book hard to resist.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 8 The Lying Game Books in Order (Complete List 2026)