Secret letters exposing James Buchanan as our first gay president lead college history professor Jeff Berman to fall in love with disgraced reporter Pascal Montrouge, who can make all his dreams come true—-or destroy everything Jeff has worked for. Jeff Berman, a Pennsylvania history professor, discovers correspondence between President James Buchanan and his male aide, which depicts their sexual and emotional relationship. With the help of handsome Pascal Montrouge, a disgraced reporter hungry to return to the big time, Jeff is swept away by publicity for what he has seen as an academic book, and his dreams of tenure and true love seem to be coming true. But when his life falls apart and his academic life is threatened, Jeff questions whether Pascal has only been using him—-and how he can build a new life from the debris of his old one.

Jeff Berman is in freefall. He's been denied tenure, then lost his follow-up job as a presenter on the History Channel. But rock bottom comes fast and painful when he learns that the love of his life, the charismatic, passionate, and devastatingly self-destructive Pascal Montrouge, has died. At Pascal's funeral, Jeff meets his lover’s parents, who explain that the man Jeff knew was a completely invented identity. As a journalist, Pascal played with facts, and he did the same in his life, where he was the consummate fabulist, fooling everyone a little, and Jeff most of all. Distraught and betrayed, Jeff is compelled to dig into the dark secrets of his lover's life. His exploration is part amateur sleuth story, part meditation on the nature of love. As Jeff solves the mystery of Pascal life and death he learns how he can move forward into his next chapter. A book for everyone who has ever loved and lost.