The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman

Decadent. Daring. Delicious. From the multi-prize winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, the dazzlingly funny novel about one woman's (sometimes misguided) search for acceptance. 'The novel everyone is going to be talking about' JASMINE GUILLORY 'Funny and juicy and sexy' SAMANTHA IRBY 'Pure audacious joy!' BONNIE GARMUS 'Witty, raunchy, funny as hell' TIA WILLIAMS 'This novel is so alive!' RAVEN LEILANI 'I laughed, I cried, I got turned on! A heroine you can't help but root for.' RUFI THORPE ___ Meet Scharisse Freeman, the Beyoncé of the megachurch world: bold, unapologetic, ambitious, very much her own woman. For the same reasons, she has always been a pariah among the other preachers' wives (aka First Ladies). Hers is a rags-to-Rolex story. From the moment she ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she's been labelled too brash by the First Ladies and too holy by her estranged childhood friend, Petra. Schar doesn't have a lot of allies, but that hasn't stopped her from building an empire spanning from books to branded products - a comfortable life her mother could only have dreamed of. On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the validation she's always craved: an invitation to participate in one of the biggest dates in the megachurch world, the First Lady USA pageant. But as the competition nears, a scandal breaks and her carefully curated life threatens to implode... Funny, smart, and splendidly unruly, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is perfect for fans of books with buzz! *** A Most Anticipated Book of year by PEN America, Lit Hub, BookPage, and Ms. Magazine 'This book is so damn good. Sexy, messy, funny AF...it slaps with a perfectly manicured open hand.' NIKESHA ELISE WILLIAMS 'Fasten your seatbelt...a funny yet sobering literary exploration of aspiration, double-standards, shame, heartbreak and healing' CHARMAINE WILKERSON 'Sexy, shocking and funny as hell.... Deesha Philyaw has written a love letter to the women in this world.' VICTOR LAVALLE 'This one is special. Like, forever special.' KIESE LAYMON 'Irresistibly catty, twisty, and packed with secrets.' MATEO ASKARIPOUR

The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is the highly anticipated debut novel from Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. This acclaimed short story collection won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction and Reckon True Stories.