In 2014, E. Lockhart took young adult readers by storm with her novel We Were Liars. It’s a haunting, twist-filled novel about a wealthy, seemingly perfect family that summers on their own private island. At the center is Cadence Sinclair Eastman, a teenage girl struggling to remember the events of one traumatic summer that left her with memory loss, chronic migraines, and a sense that something is deeply wrong.
She returns to the island two years later and reunites with her closest companions — her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and Gat, the boy she once loved. Together, they were known as The Liars, a tight-knit group bonded by rebellion, idealism, and a desire to escape the toxic patterns of their privileged family.
As Cadence tries to untangle what really happened that summer, the story peels back layers of secrets, grief, and denial. Told in lyrical, almost fairy tale-like prose, the novel builds to a devastating twist that redefines everything. It’s a novel about denial, grief, and the lies we tell ourselves to protect what we think we love, and the people we think we can’t live without.
Now, more than 10 years after its initial release, the popular psychological family drama has been adapted into an 8-episode TV series, thanks to showrunners Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) and Carina Adly Mackenzie (Roswell, New Mexico). And the world of The Liars was brought to life by series stars Emily Alyn Lind (Cadence), Shubham Maheshwari (Gat), Esther McGregor (Mirren), and Joseph Zada (Johnny).
In honor of the show’s release, I interviewed the author to learn more about the adaptation process. Here are some of the behind-the-scenes details, straight from E. Lockhart’s mouth:
