First came the Sexy-Sexygate scandal. Then an impeachment trial. Finally, a battle royale for the presidency. At the center of this political typhoon is Vita Nova, the Philippines' most famous movie star and former paramour of the country's most powerful man. Now, for the first time ever, she bares herself completely in a tell-all memoir that puts the sensational in sensationalistic.

The setting: a sweating, heaving country. The time: right now. The plot: a drug war rages; an assassin brandishes a pistol; a damsel rises from ashes to power; and a government teeters on the brink. Among the players are a dreamer who boxed and acted his way to the presidency; his Koran-toting nemesis in the Senate; a horny bishop; a cowboy turned warlord; a poor little rich boy dying with his dynasty; a washed-up reporter redeemed by one last scoop; a high school sweetheart driven mad by decades of disappointment; and an American naval officer tempting our heroine with a way out. As Vita warns, viewer discretion is advised.

In this masterful and audacious novel, Miguel Syjuco's signature style — hilarious, insightful, playful, and provocative — animates thirteen indelible voices whose stories present a cross-section of a complicated society. I Was the President's Mistress!! hurtles headlong into love, politics, faith, history, memory, and the ongoing war over who will tell the stories the world shall know as truth. (From Penguin Random House Canada)

Miguel Syjuco is a Filipino Canadian writer. His debut novel, Ilustrado, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010, and the winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Hugh MacLennan Prize, the Palanca Award, and the Filipino Readers' Choice Award.