WHY BE YOURSELF WHEN YOU CAN BE PERFECT?

**As featured on The High Low podcast**

'MAGNIFICENT. Brutally honest and righteously angry but still HUGELY enjoyable and engaging. I bow down!' Marian Keyes

'A thoughtful, intelligent, urgent novel women need to read.' Dolly Alderton

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He said he was looking for a 'partner in crime' which everyone knows is shorthand for 'a woman who isn't real'.

April is kind, pretty, and relatively normal - yet she can't seem to get past date five. Every time she thinks she's found someone to trust, they reveal themselves to be awful, leaving her heartbroken. And angry.

If only April could be more like Gretel.

Gretel is exactly what men want - she's a Regular Everyday Manic Pixie Dream Girl Next Door With No Problems.

The problem is, Gretel isn't real. And April is now claiming to be her.

As soon as April starts 'being' Gretel, dating becomes much more fun - especially once she reels in the unsuspecting Joshua.

Finally, April is the one in control, but can she control her own feelings? And as she and Joshua grow closer, how long will she be able to keep pretending?
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PRAISE FOR HOLLY BOURNE:

'Honest and unflinching' Stylist

'Funny, touching and painfully true' Grazia

'Relatable for any woman navigating emotional time bombs' Red

'Bourne incinerates the lies we're all capable of telling ourselves' Emerald Street

'Funny, real and heartbreaking' Lucy Vine

'Funny, sad, honest, insightful, up-to-the-minute' Roisin Meaney

'Smart, witty and perceptive. Razor-sharp on friendship, self-image and self-deception' Lucy Diamond

"'Unsettling and hopeful, enlightening and entertaining. A thoughtful, intelligent, urgent novel women need to read'" - Dolly Alderton

"Pretending looks at what it is to be a woman and makes the reader look inwards (or backwards), reflecting on past encounters with more awareness, forgiveness and understanding than ever before. Empowering, thought-provoking, honest, observant, heart-wrenching and uncomfortable - an exposing and healing read" - Giovanna Fletcher

"I cannot think of a more important modern love story to tell" - Dolly Alderton, The High Low podcast

"What looks like a lolzy rom-com is actually a punch-in-the-gut brilliant novel about consent and mental health. Don't let this one pass you by" - Grazia

"Thoughtful, smart and painfully true" - Cosmopolitan

"A brilliant, hard-hitting, tell-all-your-girlfriends-to-read-it book" - Fabulous Magazine

"Hugely entertaining rom-com for the post #MeToo generation" - Daily Mail

"Pretending is Holly Bourne at her best. It's a funny, feminist yet challenging read that will make many readers feel validated and seen" - Red

"Bourne's novels are so witty, so stingingly acute on millennial pop culture, that you only notice by stealth their serious intent" - Metro

"A funny, feminist and challenging story, which will make readers feel validated and seen. What an accomplishment for a novel" - Red Magazine

"Devastating, funny and insightful, Holly Bourne's Pretending is a read that will resonate" - Stylist

"After Bourne's How Do You Like Me Now? became a bestseller, we predict great things" - Red

"This book will make you laugh, cry, think and feel understood in less than 500 pages" - Platinum-mag.co.uk

"An author highly attuned to the concerns of 20/30-something women, but writes so engagingly that her readership goes well beyond this demographic" - The Bookseller