I'll Eat When I'm Dead - Softcover

"Sex. Drugs. Dries van Noten. I'll Eat When I'm Dead skewers Tribe Fashion with wit and wicked intelligence. From Finnish toast-only restaurants to kobe-beef hide bikinis and grandiose faux feminism, Barbara Bourland makes you laugh out loud, and keep turning the page. A deft, smart, and hilarious debut."--Wednesday Martin, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Primates of Park Avenue

A smart feminist fashion manifesto packed with pulpy, sexy, murderous intrigue. Highly entertaining!--Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed

"I'll Eat When I'm Dead had me hooked with its biting satire of the fashion world's dark underbelly. And what a heroine! Anyone who has opened up a woman's magazine and despaired at the content should read this book."--Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, Co-Editor of The Vagenda

"Readers will devour this mystery by Bourland. What at first seems a death by natural causes turns into a murder that will have you guessing at whodunit up until the very end. . . A fun, witty, edge-of-your-seat ride through the demanding and sometimes dangerous world of fashion.--RT Book Reviews


"Barbara Bourland deftly tackles body-image issues with wit in this mystery."--US Weekly


"Delightfully, playfully skewering the fashion and beauty industries, this is like The Devil Wears Prada with more feminism, plus murder."--Booklist

"A reckless adventure in the world of starry-eyed models, dubiously sourced drugs, anorexia, and Instagram. But don't let the frills and flashbulbs fool you. Barbara Bourland is here to show you that fashion is a deadly serious business."--Mikita Brottman, author of The Maximum Security Book Club

"A compulsively readable, satirical romp with a sharp and vicious twist, I'll Eat When I'm Dead is a timely, smart, and perceptive mystery,"--K.J Howe, author of The Freedom Broker

"A smart, satirical take on fashion and media that will have readers snorting with laughter."--The New York Post

"A whodunnit with a Devil Wears Prada twist...If you love UnReal, then this smart, sassy novel will be right up your alley."--Refinery29

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Every weekday morning, as the sun rose above Sixth Avenue, a peerless crop of women-frames poised, behavior polished, networks connected, and bodies generally buffed to a high sheen-were herded by the cattle prod of their own ambition to one particular building. They're smart, stylish, and sophisticated, even the one found dead in her office.

When stylish Hillary Whitney dies alone in a locked, windowless conference room at the offices of RAGE Fashion Book, her death is initially ruled an unfortunate side effect of the unrelenting pressure to be thin. But Hillary's best friend and fellow RAGE editor Catherine Ono knows her friend's dieting wasn't a capital P problem. If beauty could kill, it'd take more than that.

When two months later, a cryptic note in Hillary's handwriting ends up in the office of the NYPD and the case is reopened, Det. Mark Hutton is led straight into the glamorous world of RAGE and into the life of hot-headed and fiercely fabulous Cat, who insists on joining the investigation. Surrounded by a supporting cast of party girls, Type A narcissists and half- dead socialites, Cat and her colleague Bess Bonner are determined to solve the case and achieve sartorial perfection. But their amateur detective work has disastrous results, and the two ingénues are caught in a web of drugs, sex, lies and moisturizer that changes their lives forever.

Viciously funny, this sharp and satirical take on the politics of women's bodies and women's work is an addictive debut novel that dazzles with style and savoire faire.