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Monday, November 9, 2009

We met Sara Shepard! (And began a Pretty Little Liars love affair.)

Friday night, the FNC traveled to nearby Plymouth Meeting, PA to meet Sara Shepard, author of the bestselling Pretty Little Liars series. She was doing a book signing and reading for KILLER, the sixth book (of eight). We love meeting authors, especially local ones, and Pretty Little Liars is actually inspired by her experiences growing up in the posh Main Line area of suburban Philadelphia.

Far from a Mean Girl, Sara was quite delightful. She waited patiently for stragglers to begin the reading, made sure not to read spoilers in her excerpt (specifically, the identity of the first A), and answered many questions from her audience. Warm and welcoming, she asked the audience questions about their favorite characters and about what local high school they attended.

Here's a list of fabulous factoids we learned:
- Pretty Little Liars just might become a TV show! Talks are in the works for a pilot on ABC Family.
- Sara's starting a new YA series called The Lying Game. It's set on the West Coast and, like Pretty Little Liars, is a murder mystery. Except this time, there are twins! Who don't know about each other!
- She's itching to write Ali's diary as a companion book/prequel to the Pretty Little Liars series, but so far there are no official plans in the works.
- Sara claims that Aria is the character most like her -- but not because of the teacher affair!
- A lifelong writer, Sara never believed she could make a living from it.
- Sara was the ghostwriter for the first It Girl novel.
- Hanna is her favorite character to write.
- Writer's block doesn't stop Sara. She just keeps on writing -- even if it's bad -- until she gets back in the groove.
- Throughout the Pretty Little Liars series, both Mike and Jenna got bigger/different roles than Sara originally intended.
- The series was slated for four books, but then Sara learned that there would be eight, so she had to flesh out the plot arcs to fill the whole series.
- Sara also wrote an adult book called THE VISIBLES, and she hopes you'll check it out!
- HEARTLESS sneak peek -- Hanna is in a mental institution...and of course she has to be the most popular one there.

After the reading and signing, we chatted with Sara about our blog and critique group, and she even agreed to do an interview with the FNC!

We took a picture with her and the display of Pretty Little Liars books. The bright covers look lovely, don't you agree?
[Sara (our fourth FNC member) was home with the flu. Hi Sara! We missed you!]

Confession time -- I'd never read the series. They'd been on my TBR list for forever, but I enjoy starting series near the end of their run because I have a little problem with instant gratification. That way, I can snatch up one book after the other. And from Sara's reading of the first chapter of KILLER (and Frankie's proclamation that she read PRETTY LITTLE LIARS in one day and was dying to read the rest), I knew I'd be hooked in no time. Here's the good news: book seven, HEARTLESS, comes out in January 2010, so once I get done the first six, I won't have to wait too long!

Thus begins our love affair with Pretty Little Liars.

Are you starting the series, too? How about buying a box set of the first four? (I smell a ChristmaKwanzaHanukkah present!)

What are your thoughts on Pretty Little Liars? Have you met any awesome authors lately?

8 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh LOVE this series. This is actually the very first modern YA book series that I read and I was COMPLETELY hooked. I'm so jealous you got to meet her in person!

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  2. AWESOME series. Sara does an excellent job of mixing mystery and romance. It's fabulous. =D

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  3. I love the part about instant gratification--I did the same thing with the Sookie Stackhouse (okay, fine True Blood) series. I even broke a cardinal rule of mine and bought the most recent release in hardback--all the others I have are paperbacks--bc the library didnt have a copy yet. I HATE that I did that, but I needed to know! Gasp!

    --Brittany

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  4. I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! My friend and I read them at sleepovers..that was like all we did. My favorite person was Aria...although I would never have a "thing" for my teacher. The last one really shocked me. It was a confusing, but really logical explination. I can't wait for "The Lying Game" to come out....i hope it's as good as these!

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  5. I absoutly love Pretty Little Liars!! Im in 8th grade and i just finished the last book. All my friends want to read them now. My fav character was Spencer and Hannah. Im bummed that they're over but i cant wait for The Lying Game.

    ~~Alexis~~

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  6. The instant gratification thing is so true! I did it with The Hunger Games (I still had to wait 5 months for Mockingjay!!), Twilight, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Mortal Instruments (Well, back then I thought there were only 3 books...) and basically pretty much every book I love. But I read Hush, Hush as soon as it came out, I was at a homeware shop with my mum and for some reason there was a box of books. But they were all adult ones and I almost walked past it but it was the only interesting thing there and so I bought Hush, Hush for $3.95, not knowing that it would be awesome and the start of something huge with me and all my friends. Yeah, that's my most exciting book story.

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  7. little*singer1999May 21, 2012 at 5:46 PM

    i honstely love the pretty little liars series! i have read them all at least 3 times. i hate reading so much, but once i started reading this series i started liking it! thankyou<3

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