As Alix learns increasingly dark details about Josie’s life, she is disturbed but she doesn’t intervene, nor does she stop the podcast interviews. Do you think Alix should have done something? What do you think the outcome would have been? 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. I’m speechless after reading this bone chilling, dark, twisty, mind bending thriller which is one of the best works of Lisa Jewel. In what ways are we encouraged to see Josie in a sympathetic light in the early chapters? How does Lisa Jewell’s characterization lead us to think of Josie as just a little quirky or lonely—and ultimately harmless? A few days later, they bump into each other again, this time outside Alix's children's school. Josie says she thinks she would be an interesting subject for Alix's podcast. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

The police call and say that Josie’s elder daughter, Roxy, has been located. Roxy claims that she was in love with Brooke and that her father never harmed anyone. Lisa Jewell's latest Psychological Thriller grabbed my attention from the start and held it all the way through. This was absolutely addictive!! I don’t think Roxy killed Brooke. Yes, Roxy definitely had violent tendencies. But according to Erin, Roxy wasn’t home at the time and I don’t think Erin has a reason to lie about that. It’s more risky for Erin to blame her parents. (For the record, I was wrong about this!! And Erin is clearly more scared of Roxy.)

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Erin recovers and moves in with her sister. Josie is still on the run. She sends Alix a letter claiming that Nathan’s death was a accident.

Two women, Alix Summer and Josie Fair, meet on the evening of their mutual 45th birthdays. Alix has a popular podcast and an enviable life with a husband, two kids and a nice home. Josie has a significantly older husband, two troubled daughters and a host of secrets. In Alix, her birthday twin, Josie sees an opportunity to change it all by convincing Alix a couple days later to feature her in her next podcast, promising to share her secrets and show listeners her transformation.

These characters though...they might have been her most unlikable group to date. Even protagonist Alix has her blinders on selectively throughout and doesn't exactly do her due diligence with, well, anything. Josie is obviously a woman of mystery, but as a reader, I had a hard time buying her stories and suspected that a LOT was wrong with this situation (beyond the obvious). Nevertheless, I was excited to get to the bottom of things and had a hard time stopping myself from extrapolating endlessly as the novel wore on, with theory after theory about all of the players involved. My work colleagues might fight me on this one on Monday 🤭 was the premise good? yes, very good actually. It was new and fun and twisty and I loved it. I had a sense of panic from the beginning when the "birthday twins" Alix and Josie unexpectantly meet. The story became darker than dark the further I read. It was quite unputdownable and going places that gave me anxiety. I think Alix felt it too, I wanted to shake her!! Tell her to just R-U-N 🏃‍♂️ The audio was brilliant! The two principal narrators did a thoroughly amazing job bringing Josie and Alix to vivid life. The supporting cast of narrators that lent their gifted voices to the ‘podcasts’ were phenomenal as well!

None of This Is True--but what is true and what isn't? That's the question I was asking myself throughout my reading. Q: None of This Is True includes podcast interviews throughout. What were you excited to explore by including a podcast within the structure, as well as by having one of the narrators be a podcaster? She sees Alix getting to her feet and heading toward the toilet, jumps to her own feet, and says, “I’m going to the ladies.”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. Alix agrees to a trial interview and indeed, Josie's life appears to be strange and complicated. Aix finds her unsettling but can't quite resist the temptation to keep digging.