True Story: A Novel

In a new novel about the perils of secrets and the power of stories from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner, a recently separated writer has to put her life back together after she finds out on social media that her ex-husband is dating the supermodel once crowned "The World's Most Beautiful Woman."

Ellie Mendel meets Jamie DeVries in graduate school, when she is a scrappy scholarship student who dreams of writing literary fiction and he is the wealthy, privileged son of a Great American Novelist, a young man who's never been allowed to envision a future besides following in his father's footsteps. Ellie keeps her crush to herself, unable to imagine that Jamie could love her. When he tells her that he does, she thinks they’ll be living a blissful happily-ever-after.

But real life turns out differently. After a single, outsized success, Jamie develops permanent writer's block, while Ellie finds herself telling other kinds of stories than the ones she’d expected. Then two decades of disappointments, resentments, and betrayals finally tear them apart.

Ellie is still reeling from the split when she opens Instagram and discovers that Jamie has a new girlfriend: Valentine, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover girl who is back in the public eye with a burgeoning army of online followers. Their affair pushes Ellie to step into the spotlight, after years spent writing quietly behind the scenes.

When all three of them end up at a literary retreat in the Berkshires, they must confront not only one another, but also the stories they’ve been telling: to themselves, to their partners, to their readers, and to the world.

From the beaches of Cape Cod to the coast of suburban Connecticut, True Story is a bingeable, timely, and entertaining tale about love and marriage, fame and creativity, and truth and fiction.