Pretty Little Liars is a series of young adult novels by Sara Shepard. Beginning with 2006's initial novel of the same name, the series follows the lives of four girls—Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, Aria Montgomery and Emily Fields.

The novels appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for 62 weeks. The series spawned a media franchise with a television series adaptation loosely based on the novels which debuted on June 8, 2010, on ABC Family. The franchise has been licensed by Amazon.com's Kindle Worlds range of non-canon ebooks.

Overview

The series is loosely divided into arcs, chronicling the introduction and reveal of each "A". Set in the suburbs of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, the series follows the lives of four teenage girls nicknamed the Pretty Little Liars or simply the Liars, whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their queen bee leader, Alison DiLaurentis. Three years after her mysterious disappearance, the girls begin receiving intimidating messages from an anonymous character named "A". "A" threatens to expose their secrets, including long-forgotten ones they thought only Alison knew. Shortly after the messages begin, Alison's body is discovered buried in her yard. The books progress with the four girls trying to figure out the identity of "A" and facing many dangerous obstacles as they do.

Characters

The series has many characters, most of them recurring. The main characters are:

Spencer Hastings: Spencer is a headstrong, intelligent, overachieving girl who comes from the wealthy Hastings family and is forced into winning everything. She has wavy blonde hair and wears preppy outfits when not in sports clothes.

Hanna Marin: Hanna is self-absorbed, popularity obsessed, strong, and the "it-girl" of the group following Alison's disappearance. She has an eating disorder which Alison taunts her for. She is Jewish, and has long dark brown hair she often dyes auburn.

Aria Montgomery: Aria is a quirky and artsy girl who, at the beginning of the books, is trying to find herself. She is very tall and pale with dark black hair that she occasionally highlights.

Emily Fields: Emily is considered the jock of the group, being a physical, loyal girl who struggles with her sexuality. Near the end of the series she also struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts. Emily is Catholic and described with red hair and a muscular frame.

Alison DiLaurentis: Alison is the former "Queen Bee" of her clique, consisting of Spencer, Hanna, Aria and Emily. It is later revealed that the Alison the girls thought they knew was her twin sister, Courtney. "Real Ali" was friends with Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe up until the sixth grade, when Courtney took her place. Ali was supposedly killed at the beginning of the series; however, she is revealed to have been alive and their tormentor, "A". "A" sought revenge for being mistaken as her twin sister Courtney and being sent the Preserve at Addison-Stevens, a facility for mentally ill patients, which she believed was the Liars' fault.

Her identical twin sister, Courtney DiLaurentis, debuted in Wanted after the TV show began in 2010. She has an older brother, Jason DiLaurentis, and her half-sisters are Melissa and Spencer Hastings.

Courtney DiLaurentis: "Alison", the one who originally befriended the four girls in the sixth grade, is later revealed to be Courtney (often referred to by the Liars as Our Ali, or Their Ali.) She is the third child of Jessica and Kenneth DiLaurentis and Alison's twin sister. The twins were described to be inseparable as children, but Alison began to exhibit a vicious jealousy towards Courtney as they grew up, culminating in her attempting to drown Courtney. Alison manipulated Courtney into adamantly referring to herself as Alison in an attempt to get Courtney institutionalized. Courtney was sent to The Preserve at Addison-Stevens after a physical argument with Alison. Years later during a rare visit home, Courtney tricked their parents to believe Alison was Courtney. Alison's claims that she was the real Ali caused her parents to believe her even less, and the real Ali was sent to The Preserve. Subsequently, Courtney befriends the Liars and morphs into "Queen Bee Ali" until the night of her infamous disappearance, when she was killed and buried by the real Alison DiLaurentis and Nick Maxwell.

A: A is the main antagonist of the series, being an anonymous character who relentlessly torments the cast, particularly the Liars. Over the course of the series Mona Vanderwaal, Alison DiLaurentis and Nick Maxwell are revealed to be "A". Mona, the original iteration of A, did so due to Alison and the Liars being responsible for "The Jenna Thing", which also injured her. After Mona's death another "A" takes over, this time even more determined to hurt the Liars. This "A" is later revealed to be Alison, who wanted revenge on the Liars for ruining her life, and Nick, her accomplice.

Novels

First Arc Book # Title Publication date ISBN Pages 1 Pretty Little Liars October 3, 2006 304 The story begins introducing an exclusive group of friends: Alison DiLaurentis, the popular yet manipulative queen bee; Aria Montgomery, an independent oddball who went to Iceland over the summer; Emily Fields, a swimmer who has a secret crush on Alison; Hanna Marin, who strives to be thin and popular like Alison; and Spencer Hastings, an overachiever that stands up against Alison's manipulative ways. Alison mysteriously disappears during a sleepover with the girls in the summer before 8th grade.

The story then skips to 3 years later, when the girls no longer speak to each other.

Aria returns to Rosewood from a 3-year trip to Iceland much more sophisticated than before she left. She meets and makes out with a man in a local bar who is revealed later to be her new English teacher, Ezra Fitz.

Emily befriends a girl who has recently moved to Rosewood, Maya St. Germain, and soon develops romantic feelings for her, even though Emily has a boyfriend, Ben. Maya spends more time with Emily, helping her escape her conservative family; however, Emily's mother - Kathleen - is racist and disapproves of their friendship. Ben later finds Maya and Emily kissing in the photo booth at a party and dumps beer on them.

Hanna has become popular alongside Mona Vanderwaal, who she is extremely attached to. She and Mona occasionally shoplift, and Hanna is caught and arrested for stealing earrings and necklaces from a jewelry shop. Hanna's mother pays her bail.

She also has a strained relationship with her boyfriend, Sean Ackard, due to his virginity club vows. She is arrested and bailed out again after taking and accidentally crashing his father's car, causing them to break up. Hanna battles her eating disorder, living with her absent workaholic mother, and managing the stress of keeping her queen bee status.

Spencer continues to struggle with her long-standing rivalry with Melissa Hastings, her perfect older sister. She begins to feel attracted to Melissa's new boyfriend, Wren Kim. Eventually, Melissa catches Spencer and Wren kissing and informs their parents, who reprimand Spencer. Melissa breaks up with Wren, who returns later to meet with Spencer.

Throughout the story, the Liars get messages threatening to reveal their secrets, including an incident the girls refer to as "The Jenna Thing". They believe it is their missing friend, Alison, because she is the only one each of them told their darkest secrets. However, they are shocked when the police find her corpse buried in the gazebo of her former house. The book ends with the Liars receiving a text at Alison's funeral saying, "I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. -A". 2 Flawless March 27, 2007 330Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, Aria Montgomery, and Emily Fields continue to receive text messages from an unknown person, "A", and are more desperate than ever to discover their identity. "A" continues to taunt them with the threat of exposing their many secrets. At first the girls believe "A" is Alison, but they soon start to believe the person behind the threats is Toby due to references to "The Jenna Thing". With Alison dead, he is the only other person who was a part of the incident besides the Liars.

"The Jenna Thing" is revealed to be an incident in which Ali had set off a firework in Jenna Cavanaugh's step-brother Toby's treehouse to get revenge after Toby spied on the Liars changing. The firework caused the treehouse burst into flames, not knowing that Jenna was inside, she was permanently blinded. Toby was framed for the fire by Alison, and everyone but Spencer is unaware of why he took the blame for what happened.

"A" sends Emily a text message hinting that "A" knows about Emily and Maya's romantic relationship, and threatens to tell everyone about it. Emily becomes close with Toby and goes to a benefit party with him, but then later tells him she thinks she might be gay.

"A" leaves a note for Hanna forcing her to tell Naomi and Riley that she makes herself throw up and Sean broke up with her. Later, she receives a text that tells her Sean is at Foxy with another girl. Hanna is shocked to discover her former boyfriend Sean Ackard ignoring his Virginity Club vows and nearly having sex with Aria.

"A" tells Aria to either 'get rid of the problem' or tell her mother the truth about Byron, her father, and his affair with his student Meredith Gates. Aria goes to confront the other woman, but when she does Meredith tells her that she and Aria's father are in love. Ella finds out about Byron's affair and kicks him out, leaving Ella and Aria's relationship shattered as she learns Aria had known about the affair.

Spencer continues to date with her sister Melissa's ex-boyfriend Wren and loses her virginity to him. However, Melissa begins to hook-up with him as well.

After receiving a text from "A" about Foxy, Hanna realizes "A" is at the party and informs Spencer and Aria. The three believe it to be Toby, but discover Emily has gone home with him after her ex-boyfriend, Ben, attempted to rape her. Spencer phones Emily, but the two get cut off.

In the car, Emily rambles to Toby, feeling overwhelmed, and he rants about Alison to her, saying he is happy she's dead. Startled by this, Emily flees from the car and runs home. Toby arrives as well, banging on the door shouting that he needs to talk to her. She receives the call from Spencer, but hangs up after spotting Toby. Emily tells him she knows what he did to 'her', meaning Alison, causing Toby to freak out and beg her to not tell the police. The next day, Toby is found dead by suicide on the road leading to Emily's house. It is revealed that Toby raped Jenna when they were in middle school, and Ali and Spencer knew about it, which is how Alison forced Toby to take the blame for "The Jenna Thing". A traumatized Emily feels responsible for Toby's suicide as he believed that she knew about him and Jenna. 3 Perfect August 21, 2007 298The girls no longer speak to each other. Aria and Hanna refuse to speak to each other because Aria is seeing Hanna's ex-boyfriend. Emily has isolated herself due to her guilt over Toby's death, and Spencer is busy and spends her time alone.

Now homeless after being kicked out by her mother for hiding her father's affair, Aria goes to live with her new boyfriend, Sean Ackard. Still seeing Ezra, their relationship is broken up when Sean informs the police, having found out the secret from "A". Aria and Ezra were together in bed when the police raided Ezra's place and arrested him. Sean breaks up with her, leaving Aria homeless again. Aria fails to reach her father. She looks at homemade videos that she made years ago and realizes that Alison was also "dating" Ian, Melissa's boyfriend, whom Spencer had a crush on (and had also kissed). Although the charges pressed against Ezra are dropped, he moves out of Rosewood after being fired from the school.