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None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

Thriller

None of This Is True

BOTY FINALIST

Each year thousands of members vote for our Book of the Year award—congrats to None of This Is True!

3peat author

Lisa Jewell is officially a 3-time author at BOTM, which is a pretty big deal!

by Lisa Jewell

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Quick take

A podcaster and her subject’s lives become increasingly intertwined in this twisty tale where fact and fiction compete.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Psychological

    Psychological

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Unreliable_Narrator

    Unreliable narrator

  • Illustrated icon, Movieish

    Movieish

Synopsis

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realize that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Content warning

This book contains mentions of child abuse.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of None of This is True.

None of This Is True

PROLOGUE

Stumbling from the cool of the air-conditioned hotel foyer into the steamy white heat of the night does nothing to sober him up. It makes him feel panicky and claustrophobic. A sweat that feels like pure alcohol blooms quickly on his skin, dampening his spine and the small of his back. How can it be so hot at three in the morning? And where is she? Where is she? He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel. And then he sees a car indicate to pull over and his heart rate starts to slow. She’s here. At last. Thank God. This terrible night is coming to an end. He squints to bring it into focus, to search the driver’s seat for the reassuring gleam of her white-blond hair, but it’s not there. The window winds down and he recoils slightly.

“What?” he says to the dark-haired woman behind the wheel. “What are you doing here? Where’s my wife?”

“It’s OK,” says the woman. “She sent me. She’d had too much to drink. She asked me to bring you home. Come on. In you get.”

He looks behind him for the girl, sees her leaving the hotel and walking quickly away in the opposite direction, her handbag clutched tight against her side.

“I’ve got water. I’ve got coffee. Come on. You’ll be home in no time.”

The dog on her lap growls at him softly as he slides into the passenger seat.

“I thought you’d left?” he says, fumbling behind himself to find the seat belt. “I thought you’d gone away?”

The woman smiles at him as she unscrews the lid from a plastic bottle of water and passes it to him.

“Yes,” she says. “I had. But she needed me. So. Anyway. Drink that. Drink it all down.”

He puts the bottle to his dry, dry mouth, and gulps it back. Then he closes his eyes and waits to be home.

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Why I love it

I have been a huge Lisa Jewell fan since her breakout novel Then She Was Gone, and every year that we are treated to a new installment in the Jewell universe is a lucky one. With None of This Is True, Lisa Jewell proves once again that thrilling chills and multifaceted characters make for a perfect marriage of psychological suspense.

None of This Is True begins with the unlikely meeting of two women celebrating their forty-fifth birthdays—unwitting “birthday twins” who connect over the occasion in a local bar. Soon after meeting, one of them, Josie, begins listening to her new pal Alix’s podcast about inspiring women and becomes convinced she would be the perfect subject for an episode about midlife reinvention. Alix hesitantly agrees, but once she gets a taste of Josie’s life, she can’t help but become fully mesmerized by and invested in its many twists and turns. The more she learns, the more Alix questions the truth of what Josie tells her, even as she lets her stay in her family’s home. By the time Josie disappears, she has fully ingratiated herself into Alix’s life—and those Alix loves are in grave danger.

This thriller is classic Lisa Jewell—twisted family dynamics, complicated female friendships, and delectably unreliable narrators that will keep you guessing till the bitter end. The podcast excerpts take it up that extra notch, with witness interviews painting a picture of a darkening world that you can’t help but be sucked into. So do yourself a favor and pick up None of This Is True—just be warned that reality might not look the same once you’re done . . .

Other books by Lisa Jewell

Member ratings (49,672)

2023 BOTY Finalists
Yours Truly
None of This Is True
Shark Heart
Weyward
The Wishing Game
2023 BOTY Finalists
View all
Yours Truly
None of This Is True
Shark Heart
Weyward
The Wishing Game