Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I’ll Eat When I’m Dead | 2017 | Barbara Bourland | Buy |
| 2 | Fake Like Me | 2019 | Barbara Bourland | Buy |
| 3 | The Force of Such Beauty | 2022 | Barbara Bourland | Buy |
Barbara Bourland’s three standalone novels are literary thrillers that each take place in a different elite world. I’ll Eat When I’m Dead (2017) satirizes the fashion magazine industry. Fake Like Me (2019) is set in a prestigious artists’ colony where a painter uncovers unsettling truths about a colleague’s death. The Force of Such Beauty (2022) follows a former track star who realizes her royal marriage has become a prison.
Because these are standalone novels with no shared characters or storylines, you can read them in any order. Publication order is listed in the table below and gives a natural sense of how Bourland’s writing has developed over time. Her voice stays consistent across all three books: witty, suspicious of glamour, and focused on the ways women are shaped and constrained by the institutions around them.