None of This Is True: A Novel

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Over 1 million copies sold!

This unputdownable psychological thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell follows a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer 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.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

LISA JEWELL was born in London in 1968.

Her first novel, Ralph's Party, was the best- selling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has written another twenty novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls, Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs, The Family Remains and The Night She Disappeared, all of which were Richard & Judy Book Club picks.

Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over thirty languages. She lives in north London with her husband and two daughters.

“The book’s unreliable narrator, dark twists and unending suspense will keep you on edge until the very last page.” —NPR

"If you liked Verity by @colleenhoover, I think you'll like this one!" —EMILY HENRY, New York Times bestselling author

"This novel is one of Jewell's best: a gloriously dark, glittering creepfest..." —AMAZON BOOK REVIEW

"Lisa Jewell is on top-form with this pitch-black fever dream of a book - darker, twistier and more compelling than ever." —RUTH WARE, New York Times bestselling author of The It Girl

"A moody, slippery novel where nobody is as they seem. As breathtaking story is revealed within story, readers peel back the layers to find revenge, a meditation on the damage done by the past, and characters who could walk into the room and sit on your sofa. Here Jewell cements her position as queen of character-led fiction." —GILLIAN MCALLISTER, New York Times bestselling author of Wrong Place, Wrong Time

"Gloriously dark and twistier than a twisty thing." —JOJO MOYES, New York Times bestselling author of Someone Else's Shoes

"I adore Lisa Jewell, and this is her best yet. I adored the unreliable characters, their dark secrets, the fateful collision of their two different worlds in the same corner of London. I simply could not leave it alone, and had to keep reading until I'd reached the heart-stopping conclusion. Utterly irresistible from the very first page." —KATHERINE FAULKNER, author of Greenwich Park

"None of This Is True is so suspenseful, so smart, so insightful. It's all three, in equal measure, all the way through. I loved the theme of family in all its glorious (and sometimes soul-destroying) forms. Lisa Jewell writes her characters with such emotional intelligence and generosity that I cared about all of them...she takes the most universal observation and tosses it in very lightly at the end of a funny sentence—and it truly takes my breath away. So much of this novel will stay in my mind forever and that's a tremendous gift." —KATHERINE HEINY, author of Early Morning Riser

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell begins with a chance encounter between two women who share the same birthday. Alix Summers, a successful podcaster known for her series about women achieving second chances, is celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at a local pub with her husband Nathan when she meets Josie Fair. Josie is quiet and unassuming, dressed plainly and accompanied by her much older husband Walter. The two women discover they were born on the same day in the same hospital, a coincidence that sparks an immediate connection. Josie seems drawn to Alix’s confident, polished life, while Alix finds Josie’s story intriguing enough to consider featuring her on a new podcast project.

Josie quickly inserts herself into Alix’s world. She approaches Alix again near her children’s school and proposes that her own life story would make compelling podcast material. Josie describes herself as being on the verge of major changes after years of feeling trapped in an unhappy marriage and unfulfilled existence. Alix, who has been looking for fresh material after growing tired of her usual format, agrees to record a series of interviews. As the sessions progress, Josie reveals the details of her past: she met Walter when she was just thirteen and he was in his forties, began a relationship with him as a teenager, and married him at nineteen. They have two adult daughters, Erin and Roxy, whose lives carry their own complications. Erin rarely leaves her room, and Roxy disappeared years earlier after a troubled adolescence.

The more Alix learns, the more uneasy she becomes. Josie’s accounts include disturbing elements of control, grooming, and family dysfunction that Alix cannot easily dismiss. At the same time, Josie begins appearing uninvited at Alix’s home, befriending her children and offering unsolicited advice about Alix’s own marriage. Nathan’s occasional heavy drinking and disappearances have been creating tension in Alix’s household, and Josie’s presence seems to amplify those cracks. What started as a professional project begins to feel increasingly personal and invasive, yet Alix continues the interviews, drawn in by the potential for a compelling narrative.

The story unfolds through a mix of present-day scenes, interview transcripts, and later reflections framed as excerpts from a Netflix documentary about the events. This structure creates a sense of watching events unfold while already knowing that something has gone terribly wrong. Josie’s influence grows until it reaches a breaking point. She vanishes suddenly, leaving Alix to piece together the consequences of their brief but intense connection. What Alix discovers afterward transforms her from interviewer into the subject of her own true-crime story, with her family now entangled in the fallout.

Jewell builds the tension through the contrast between the two women’s lives and the gradual revelation of hidden truths. Alix’s seemingly enviable existence—beautiful home, successful career, young children—hides its own vulnerabilities, while Josie’s outwardly ordinary appearance conceals layers of manipulation and long-buried secrets. The novel explores themes of trust, identity, and the danger of inviting strangers into intimate spaces, all while keeping the reader uncertain about who is telling the truth. By the time the full scope of Josie’s actions comes into focus, the line between victim and perpetrator has blurred in unsettling ways.

In the end, the book leaves Alix and her family forever changed by the encounter, with Josie still at large and the story of what really happened continuing to echo through podcasts and documentaries. Lisa Jewell delivers a tightly plotted psychological thriller that examines how one person’s desire for reinvention can unravel the lives of everyone around them. The narrative moves at a steady, suspenseful pace, balancing domestic details with mounting dread until the final revelations land with quiet force.