The Perfectionists Books in Order

Set in the seemingly flawless town of Beacon Heights, The Perfectionists asks what happens when high achievers crack under pressure. Five very different girls - musician Mackenzie, coder and fashion lover Ava, ambitious athlete Caitlin, intense outsider Parker and golden girl Julie - are all nursing grudges against the same boy, Nolan Hotchkiss.

During a class assignment they half jokingly map out the perfect way to kill Nolan without getting caught. The plan is supposed to stay on paper, a dark fantasy that lets them blow off steam about his bullying and betrayals. Then Nolan turns up dead at a party in exactly the way they imagined.

Overnight the girls go from background overachievers to prime suspects in a high profile murder investigation. Each of them has something to hide that would look terrible to police, parents or college admissions, so the group bands together out of fear as much as out of friendship. They start probing into Nolan's other enemies and the secrets of Beacon Heights itself.

The sequel, The Good Girls, widens the circle of danger. The girls once kept a private list of people who had hurt them and, one by one, those names begin to die under suspicious circumstances. Someone knows exactly what they planned and seems intent on carrying out their fantasies, whether to frame them, protect them or send a message.

Shepard uses the glossy setting of gated communities, high tech homes and a competitive high school to explore how easy it is for small lies to snowball. The books blend romance, family drama and social media scandals with a classic whodunit structure, seeding fair clues among the red herrings.

Because there are only two main volumes, readers can move through the entire story in a tight arc, seeing how each girl evolves as the truth about Beacon Heights and their own involvement in the deaths finally comes to light.