Pretend You Love Me

In this fresh, poignant novel (originally published under the title Far From Xanadu), Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father's suicide and her mother's detachment from the family. Mike (real name: Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball, and fix plumbing. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike's small Kansas town, Mike falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything Mike is not -- cool, confident, feminine, sexy.... straight.

Julie Anne Peters has written a heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful novel that will speak to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who can't love them back.