Sara Shepard is best known for addictive teen mysteries packed with scandals, secrets, and sharp twists. Her bestselling Pretty Little Liars series helped define a style of suspenseful YA fiction that is both glamorous and unsettling.
If you enjoy Sara Shepard’s books, these authors are well worth adding to your reading list:
If you like Sara Shepard’s fast-moving teen stories and emotionally messy friendships, Kody Keplinger is a strong choice. Her novels capture high school life with wit, honesty, and plenty of heart.
In her book The DUFF, Bianca Piper discovers that the popular jock Wesley Rush has labeled her the Designated Ugly Fat Friend.
What starts as an unexpected arrangement between them soon becomes far more complicated, forcing Bianca to rethink love, identity, and the damaging power of labels.
Keplinger writes with a direct, authentic voice that makes her stories especially appealing to readers who enjoy character-driven teen drama.
Readers drawn to Sara Shepard’s suspense may also want to pick up Marieke Nijkamp. Her young adult fiction combines tension, emotional intensity, and layered characters.
For example, This Is Where It Ends unfolds over the course of just fifty-four minutes, following four teens during a devastating school crisis. As the story shifts between perspectives, each character reveals new pieces of the larger picture.
Nijkamp balances urgency with emotional depth, making her books gripping as well as deeply human.
Megan Abbott writes dark, intense thrillers about obsession, rivalry, and the dangers lurking beneath teenage ambition. Her work is a great fit for readers who enjoy the more sinister side of Sara Shepard’s fiction.
Her novel Dare Me focuses on Beth and Addy, two high school cheerleaders whose bond begins to crack when a new coach enters their world.
After a shocking death, loyalties shift and suspicion spreads, turning a competitive social circle into something far more dangerous.
Abbott excels at portraying toxic friendships, buried motives, and the pressure-cooker atmosphere of suburban life.
Lauren Oliver often explores the darker side of friendship, memory, and guilt, all of which make her a natural recommendation for Sara Shepard fans.
Her novel Broken Things centers on the unsolved murder of a girl named Summer. Years earlier, her friends Mia and Brynn were accused but never convicted, and suspicion has followed them ever since.
When new evidence surfaces, the two are forced to revisit what happened and confront the stories they’ve told themselves about that summer.
With its shifting timelines, emotional tension, and carefully layered mystery, Broken Things offers the same kind of page-turning intrigue that makes Shepard so readable.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes specializes in clever, high-stakes mysteries with smart protagonists and irresistible puzzles. If you enjoy Sara Shepard’s mix of suspense and secrets, Barnes is an easy next pick.
In The Inheritance Games Avery Grambs is a regular high school student trying to get by when a billionaire she has never met leaves her his fortune.
There’s a catch, of course. To claim the inheritance, Avery must move into the Hawthorne mansion, where she is surrounded by Tobias Hawthorne’s disbelieving family and a maze of clues.
The result is a stylish, twisty mystery filled with riddles, family drama, and constant surprises.
E. Lockhart writes elegant, unsettling mysteries that build toward unforgettable reveals. Fans of Sara Shepard’s secrets-and-lies storytelling will likely be pulled in right away.
In her novel We Were Liars, readers meet the wealthy Sinclair family, whose idyllic summers on a private island conceal old wounds and carefully buried truths.
At the center is Cadence Sinclair, who is trying to piece together what happened during one traumatic summer she can barely remember.
Lockhart combines family drama, fractured memory, and a haunting sense of unease to powerful effect.
Gillian Flynn is an excellent choice for readers who enjoy dark secrets, unreliable characters, and sharp, biting suspense. Her work skews more adult than Sara Shepard’s, but it offers a similar thrill of watching polished surfaces crack open.
Flynn’s novel Gone Girl begins with the disappearance of Amy Dunne on her fifth wedding anniversary, leaving her husband Nick under an increasingly suspicious spotlight.
As the investigation unfolds, the story keeps shifting, exposing lies, manipulations, and motives that are never as simple as they first appear.
It’s a tense, twist-heavy read that rewards anyone who loves psychological games.
Karen M. McManus is one of the most obvious recommendations for Sara Shepard fans. Her books blend teen drama, mystery, and juicy secrets in a way that feels instantly addictive.
Her novel One of Us Is Lying opens with five students walking into detention at Bayview High, but only four make it out alive. When Simon—the creator of a gossip app known for exposing everyone’s secrets—dies suddenly, the others become suspects.
As the case unfolds, hidden connections come to light and each student’s version of the truth becomes harder to trust.
With strong pacing and a cast full of secrets, McManus delivers exactly the kind of suspense many Shepard readers crave.
If you want something darker and more emotionally intense, Courtney Summers is worth a look. Her novels are gripping, raw, and often impossible to put down.
In Sadie a teenage girl sets out to find her sister’s killer, while a true-crime podcast follows the trail she leaves behind after she goes missing herself.
The dual narrative creates both urgency and heartbreak, drawing readers into a story about grief, violence, and the search for justice.
It’s a powerful pick for anyone who likes mystery with real emotional weight.
Holly Jackson has become a favorite among readers who love twisty YA mysteries, and it’s easy to see why. Her stories are clever, tense, and full of reveals that keep the momentum going.
Her book A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder follows Pip, an ambitious student who reexamines a local murder case for a school project. The deeper she digs, the more she begins to suspect that the accepted version of events is wrong.
Before long, Pip is uncovering hidden motives and dangerous truths that put her in real jeopardy.
Like Shepard, Jackson knows how to pair teenage life with high-stakes suspense.
Stephanie Perkins may be best known for romance, but she also writes suspense with a strong teen perspective. That combination makes her a good match for readers who enjoy Sara Shepard’s blend of relationships and danger.
Her book There’s Someone Inside Your House follows Makani Young, who has moved from Hawaii to a small Nebraska town to live with her grandmother. Soon, a string of murders begins targeting local students.
As fear spreads through the community, Makani must confront her own hidden past while trying to figure out who the killer is.
Perkins mixes slasher-style tension with personal drama, creating a creepy, compulsively readable story.
Michelle Hodkin is a great pick for Sara Shepard readers who don’t mind a supernatural edge in their suspense. Her books are eerie, dramatic, and filled with uncertainty.
In The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer Mara survives a terrible accident she cannot fully remember, then begins experiencing strange and deeply unsettling events.
As her world grows more unstable, she struggles to decide what is real and what may be a product of trauma, fear, or something even darker.
The novel’s atmosphere and psychological tension make it especially compelling for readers who enjoy unraveling mysteries alongside an unreliable narrator.
If you like Sara Shepard’s combination of teen characters and mounting suspense, R.L. Stine is another author to consider. He is best known for youth horror, but many of his books also revolve around secrets, danger, and twisty reveals.
One standout title is The New Girl, part of the Fear Street series. It follows Cory Brooks, who becomes fascinated by Anna, a mysterious new girl at school.
The more he tries to learn about her, the stranger and more dangerous things become, especially once Fear Street’s eerie history starts to come into play.
For readers who want a little more horror mixed into their teen suspense, Stine is an easy recommendation.
April Henry writes brisk, suspenseful novels that hook readers quickly and keep the tension high. If you enjoy Sara Shepard’s knack for momentum and surprise, Henry is a great author to try.
In her book Girl, Stolen, sixteen-year-old Cheyenne is waiting sick in the backseat of her mother’s car when a thief steals the vehicle, unaware that someone is inside. Cheyenne is blind, which makes the situation even more perilous.
What follows is a tense survival story filled with danger, quick thinking, and escalating stakes.
Henry’s straightforward, propulsive style makes her especially appealing to readers who want a fast-paced thriller.
Cecily von Ziegesar is an American author best known for her stylish young adult series Gossip Girl.
Set among Manhattan’s elite private schools, the first book introduces Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, two friends whose glamorous lives are packed with rivalry, privilege, and scandal.
When Serena suddenly returns after a mysterious absence, old tensions resurface just as an anonymous blogger named Gossip Girl begins broadcasting every juicy detail.
For readers who love the social drama, secrets, and betrayal at the heart of Pretty Little Liars, von Ziegesar offers a similarly irresistible world.
