Reviewed by Tim Suddeth
On this blog, I hope to introduce us to a wide variety of crime fiction stories from the classics to debuts. None of This Is True definitely fits in the latter category.
A psychological thriller, None of This Is True (Atria Books, August 2023) by New York Times bestselling novelist Lisa Jewell could have come straight out of today’s headlines. It is the tale of what could happen when a podcast goes wrong. None of This Is True was the winner of 2024 British Book Award Crime and Thriller Book of the Year.
Book Review
Glamourous Alix Summer has established a successful podcast interviewing successful women and talking about their lives. But she is ready for a change, not only in her career but also in her personal life. Her husband has increasingly been going on alcoholic benders, not coming home at night, and blacking out. At her forty-fifth birthday party she meets a very regular woman, Josie Fair, who says she is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday.
A few days later, the two women bump into each other at Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been watching Alix’s podcasts and tells Alix that she is about to make some big changes in her life. She suggests that the podcast’s listeners would find her story interesting. Alix begins to interview Josie in her home studio and soon realizes that Josie’s life is much darker than she expected. However, she finds herself drawn deeper into the story and suspects that Josie is hiding something deeper. But before she can stop, Josie has wormed herself into Alix’s home and family.
A review of None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell @OpeningaMystery, @TimSuddeth, #mysteries, #reviews Share on XAuthor
Jewell draws a great web that catches her characters and readers into a story with several twists. Even at the end, you’re not exactly sure what to believe.
None of This Is True is Lisa Jewell’s 21st novel. It became a Sunday Times bestseller and claimed the number one spot on Audible for six weeks in a row. The author announced that Netflix has plans to adapt it as a new feature film.
Lisa Jewell was born and lives in London. She worked in fashion retail for several years until a friend gave her a challenge: write three chapters of a novel in exchange for dinner at her favorite restaurant. In 1999, those chapters developed into her debut novel, Ralph’s Party. She is married with two children.