None of This is True: The new addictive psychological thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs

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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.

Plus she had all those weird conversations with Alix about how much better off she’d be if he was dead. So I’m not sure I buy her story that it was an accident. What was Josie’s Endgame? Alix Summers, a popular podcaster, is out celebrating her forty-fifth birthday when she meets her birthday twin Josie Fair. She doesn’t think much more about it until she runs into Josie again outside her children’s school. One thing leads to another, and Josie convinces Alix they should make a podcast about Josie’s life, sharing her truth and making some big changes.

Today, Jewell is the author of 21 novels, including her latest, None of This Is True. A psychological thriller, it tells the story of Londoners Alix and Josie, “birthday twins” who were born on the same day at the same hospital but who don’t meet until they happen to be at the same restaurant celebrating their 45th birthday. Soon, Alix, a popular podcast host, is bumping into unassuming Josie nearly everywhere she goes. At Josie’s suggestion, Alix begins a new podcast about Josie’s life. Dark secrets are unveiled, and the women’s lives become intertwined in very dangerous ways. It’s never challenging to be inside the heads of the weird characters, some of my favorite characters to write have been the oddest and the most innerving (Noelle from Then She Was Gone, Henry from The Family Upstairs, Freddie in Watching You, Owen in Invisible Girl, Lorelei in The House We Grew Up In). These kinds of characters tend to write themselves, and in fact I find the more grounded, relatable characters much harder to write about because there’s less elasticity to them, less propensity to surprise and confound, fewer places, ultimately, to go with them. I adored being inside Josie’s head, and it wasn’t until I got to the very end that I realized that her head was actually broken. When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery. Q: Do you have a birthday twin? What interested you in the idea of connecting the two women this way?

For the record, I thought Jewell nailed the podcast turned True Crime documentary angle. Additionally, her use of mixed media, with the sections from the Netflix series, was amazingly well done; round of applause.

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It took me awhile to sort out my thoughts on this one, as it was not quite what I expected, but that isn’t a bad thing. I buddy read this with my sister Irina, and part of the reason I love reading the same book as a friend or friends is due to the fact that you can really hash out your book review content ahead of time. We both ended up with similar feelings on None of This Is True, and foremost agreed that it was a compulsive, must read suspense tale. Erin says that Walter and Josie fought, and when Erin came into the room, Walter was lying on the floor bleeding. Josie refused to call an ambulance. Then Erin hit her mother (which is why Josie ended up looking battered at Alix’s.) When Erin woke up, she was tied to a chair. 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. I’m speechless after reading this bone chilling, dark, twisty, mind bending thriller which is one of the best works of Lisa Jewel. In the very last scene, Josie is on a bus contemplating the past. She’s convinced herself that the way she remembers things is what really happened. Do you think we are supposed to believer her, or is she deluding herself?

I really enjoyed the creepy vibe of the first half of the book, but soon became less and less invested. Josie is an intriguing character, but Alix’s naïveté was very frustrating. There are a couple of decent twists, but I honestly expected Jewell to go much darker with this. First, if you handed me the first three chapters of a story in a binder, with no title and asked me to guess the author-I could identify her distinctive writing by her often QUIRKY and always well developed characters. As the podcast continues, some very disturbing facts begin to reveal themselves, and Alix realises that she’s made a big mistake! Who Killed Brooke? Was Josie A Victim or a Villain? What Did Josie Mean By “Making Changes in Her Life? and more!!Having said that, there are a few things that keep me from giving this novel a higher rating. I know this is fiction and but a few things did bother me. None of the characters are particularly likeable (some worse than the others) which is fine. I know this is fiction but I could not ignore certain aspects of the story no matter how much I tried. Alix's inability to read the situation, her apparent blindness to several red flags in Josie’s behavior and her insensitivity to some extremely disturbing aspects of Josie’s life was off-putting. I also had issues with certain choices that were made in the handling of Josie’s present storyline. The author ventures into some very dark and disturbing themes in this novel (grooming, pedophilia, sexual abuse of a minor, trauma and mental health) and I’m not comfortable with the way those topics were presented. First off, I am the last person to be excited by the premise of a true crime podcast/documentary/Netflix show etc. But WOWZA. If Jewell wanted to shelve novel writing and jump into screenwriting TOMORROW, I think she could do it. The Netflix show ABOUT the podcast is cleverly and neatly interspersed into the narrative, and I kid you not, every time one of these sections popped up, I could almost SEE the drama unfolding before me. Rather than a plot device, it felt like an evocative and intriguing way to leave a tiny trail of breadcrumbs throughout the story to keep you dying for more detail, more insight, and that next provocative interview. Needless to say, if this were a real Netflix documentary... UTTERLY bingeable. Well. To say this one threw ALL of my preconceived notions out of the window COULD be the understatement of the YEAR! While podcaster Alix Summers is out with her husband to celebrate her 45th, after the big song, a woman named Josie approaches the table and informs her that she is her TRUE birthday twin---down to the year. Though Alix finds this surprising, the two go about their separate celebrations and she figures that will be the end of it. UNTIL Josie happens to run into Alix yet again - this time, outside of her children's school - and Josie has become completely enamored with Alix's podcast. In fact, she thinks she has the perfect candidate for Alix's next episode: Josie Fair herself.

But I’m not sure there is enough evidence to say that Walter was either sleeping with Brooke or abusing Erin. More on my theories on that below. Who Killed Brooke in None of This Is True?Overall, I am not as enthusiastic about this thriller as I had hoped to be. I’m still a fan of Jewell and will gladly read her next thriller. This is my first Lisa Jewell novel, and I enjoyed it very much. It is definitely NOT a police procedural with limited police characterization in the story. It follows Alix, who is celebrating her 45th birthday and encounters Josie, who is at the same restaurant. They discover that not only were they born on the same day but at the same hospital. Alix does podcasts, and Josie worms her way into Alix's life and asks her if she would like to tell Josie's story in a podcast. Alix is game and the podcast, so to speak is afoot. NONE OF THIS IS TRUE is probably one of Jewell’s darkest books and one where she takes the unreliable narrator theme to an extreme (as hinted in the title). As a very seasoned and talented storyteller, she ratcheted up the tension slowly but steadily until it was impossible to put the book down. There were quite a few hair-raising moments (and a few EEEEWWWW ones, too), and I felt like helplessly watching a train speed towards the abyss. Considering this unbearable tension, I felt that the ending lost a bit of steam and felt strangely anti-climatic to me, though overall this did not detract from the unique premise of the story. I loved the podcast and Netflix-series style of the novel, which gave it a very contemporary feel and allowed for short, punchy chapters and different POVs without losing its flow. Meet Josie Fair, a 45-year-old part-time seamstress. Married to a man significantly older, she has decided to change the course of her life in her 45th year. Alix comes into her life at just the right time--a podcast host, she is the perfect woman to help Josie share her intriguing story. Alix and Josie’s lives become intertwined in more ways than one, culminating in a chilling crime.