Twins Sutton Mercer and Emma Paxton had never known each other growing up. When they finally did discover that they were twins, they set up a way to meet. Emma, who had grown up in foster homes, made the trip to Tucson, Arizona so they could finally meet face to face. However, before this happened, someone that didn't want the girls to become better acquainted killed Sutton.

Emma isn't positive that Sutton's dead, but it seems likely since she's disappeared and Emma has received an anonymous note instructing her to pretend to be Sutton unless she wants to die, too. So Emma slips into Sutton's life, living in Sutton's room, taking Sutton's adoptive parents as her own, joining in with Sutton's group of friends, even Sutton's boyfriend. There are only two people that know Sutton is actually Emma. Ethan Landry and the killer. Emma has gone against what the killer told her and let Ethan in on the secret. She was starting to really like him, but wasn't letting herself get overly involved. There was just too much going on. But that didn't stop Ethan from helping her in her quest to discover what had happened to Sutton.

In the meantime, Sutton's friends, Madeline, and Charlotte, as well as her sister, Laurel all believed that Emma was actually Sutton. It was through them that Emma found out about The Lying Game. This was a rather diabolical game that they played consisting of some serious practical jokes. They played them on each other. It seems that a huge joke is currently in the works, but Emma can't quite figure out if it's real or a prank.

While Emma goes through the process of trying to find Sutton and Sutton's killer, Sutton watches from the place she has gone following her death. Sutton can see everything through Emma's eyes, but her memory is quite faulty of the things that happened in her life. Without Emma, she wouldn't remember anything. What's even worse, she can't remember what happened to her, who killed her or even where her body was left. She does know, however, that Emma is in a lot of danger, but there's nothing she can really do about it. All she can do is watch from wherever she is and hope that Emma can figure things out before it's too late. Something else that Sutton is learning is that she wasn't a very nice person when she was alive. That stings more than she would have thought. Now, she wishes she could go back and redo some things that she had done in her life. She can't go back, though. All she can do is watch helplessly while Emma and Ethan investigate, and hope that they find the killer before Emma ends up dead, too.

If you've been watching THE LYING GAME television series, you'll find NEVER HAVE I EVER, the second book in the series, to be a bit different. The characters are mostly the same, but many things are different in the books than the series. For instance, in the books, Sutton is dead and in the television series, she's very much alive, which causes the problems to be even more complicated. So don't expect the books to follow along with the television show. However, Sara Shepard has created an interesting and, at times, mean spirited, world that you're going to love being a part of. The only problem is that you're going to want to read the next book IMMEDIATELY!