Fake Like Me, Hardcover

A young painter tracks the mysterious life and death of her role model in this haunting work of literary suspense. A dark, glamorous, and addictive story of good intentions gone awry, from the critically acclaimed author of I'll Eat When I'm Dead.

"Part thriller, part performance art and wholly revolutionary, FAKE LIKE ME confronts American art culture with female bravado." -- BookPage

Carey Logan was the art world's genius wild child.

FAKE

I was a no-name painter clawing my way up behind her.

LIKE

When Carey died, she left a space that couldn't be filled. Except, maybe, by

ME

After a fire rips through her loft, destroying the seven billboard-size paintings meant for her first major exhibition, a young painter is left with an impossible task: recreate the lost artworks in just three months without getting caught - or ruin her fledgling career. Homeless and desperate, she begs her way into Pine City, an exclusive retreat in upstate New York notorious for three things: outrageous revelries, glamorous artists, and the sparkling black lake where brilliant prodigy Carey Logan drowned herself.

Taking up residence in Carey's former studio, the painter works with obsessive, delirious focus. But when she begins to uncover strange secrets at Pine City and falls hard for Carey's mysterious boyfriend, a single thought shadows her every move: What really happened to Carey Logan?
"A smart, satirical take on fashion and media that will have readers snorting with laughter."
-The New York Post on I'll Eat When I'm Dead

Barbara Bourland is the author of the critically acclaimed I'll Eat When I'm Dead, a Refinery29 Best Book of 2017 and an Irish Independent Book of the Year. People called I'll Eat When I'm Dead "delectable." Wednesday Martin, bestselling author of Primates of Park Avenue and Untrue, deemed it "a deft, smart, and hilarious debut." Kirkus noted that "death by beauty was never so much fun," and the book was featured in Fortune, Us Weekly, and The New York Post, among others. I'll Eat When I'm Dead is now available in paperback, and is forthcoming in Hebrew from Matar Press in Israel.

Bourland is a former freelance writer and web producer for titles at Condé Nast and Hearst, among others. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and dog.

Her second novel, Fake Like Me, is forthcoming in June 2019 from Grand Central Publishing in North America and from riverrun abroad. Fake Like Me was written with support from The Wassaic Project in Wassaic, NY, where Bourland was a resident over the winter of 2017-2018.