Mystery
![Lisa Jewell - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001IO9ULM.jpg)
None of This Is True: A Novel
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author known for her "superb pacing, twisted characters, and captivating prose" (BuzzFeed), Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about 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?
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?
Editorial Reviews
"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, so clever and completely addictive - this is Lisa Jewell at the very top of her game. This book kept me up reading late into the night and haunted my dreams!" -LUCY FOLEY, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Apartment
"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." -KATHER...
"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, so clever and completely addictive - this is Lisa Jewell at the very top of her game. This book kept me up reading late into the night and haunted my dreams!" -LUCY FOLEY, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Apartment
"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." -KATHER...
Short Excerpt Teaser
1. Saturday, 8 June, 2019 SATURDAY, 8 JUNE, 2019
Josie can feel her husband's discomfort as they enter the golden glow of the gastropub. She's walked past this place a hundred times. Thought: Not for us. Everyone too young. Food on the chalkboard outside she's never heard of. What is bottarga? But this year her birthday has fallen on a Saturday and this year she did not say, Oh, a takeaway and a bottle of wine will be fine, when Walter had asked what she wanted to do. This year she thought of the honeyed glow of the Lansdowne, the buzz of chatter, the champagne in ice buckets on outdoor tables on warm summer days, and she thought of the little bit of money her grandmother had left her last month in her will, and she'd looked at herself in the mirror and tried to see herself as the sort of person who celebrated her birthday in a gastropub in Queen's Park and she'd said, "We should go out for dinner."
"OK then," Walter had said. "Anywhere in mind?"
And she'd said, "The Lansdowne. You know. On Salusbury Road."
He'd simply raised an eyebrow at her and said, "Your birthday. Your choice."
He holds the door open for her now and she passes through. They stand marooned for a moment by a sign that says "Please wait here to be seated" and Josie gazes around at the early-evening diners and drinkers, her handbag pinioned against her stomach by her arms.
"Fair," she says to the young man who appears holding a clipboard. "Josie. Table booked for seven thirty."
He smiles from her to Walter and back again and says, "For two, yes?"
They are led to a nice table in a corner. Walter on a banquette, Josie on a velvet chair. Their menus are handed to them clipped to boards. She'd looked up the menu online earlier, so she'd be able to google stuff if she didn't know what it was, so she already knows what she's having. And they're ordering champagne. She doesn't care what Walter thinks.
Her attention is caught by a noisy entrance at the pub door. A woman walks in clutching a balloon with the words "Birthday Queen" printed on it. Her hair is winter blond, cut into a shape that makes it move like liquid. She wears wide-legged trousers and a top made of two pieces of black cloth held together with laces at the sides. Her skin is burnished. Her smile is wide. A group soon follows behind her, other similarly aged people; someone is holding a bouquet of flowers; another carries a selection of posh gift bags.
"Alix Summer!" says the woman in a voice that carries. "Table for fourteen."
"Look," says Walter, nudging her gently. "Another birthday girl."
Josie nods distractedly. "Yes," she says. "Looks like it."
The group follows the waiter to a table just across from Josie's. Josie sees three ice buckets already on the table, each holding two bottles of chilled champagne. They take their seats noisily, shouting about who should sit where and not wanting to sit next to their husbands, for God's sake, and the woman called Alix Summer directs them all with that big smile while a tall man with red hair who is probably her husband takes the balloon from her hand and ties it to a chair back. Soon they are all seated, and the first bottles of champagne are popped and poured into fourteen glasses held out by fourteen people with tanned arms and gold bracelets and crisp white shirtsleeves and they all bring their glasses together, those at the furthest ends of the table getting to their feet to reach across the table, and they all say, "To Alix! Happy birthday!"
Josie fixes the woman in her gaze. "How old do you reckon she is?" she asks Walter.
"Christ. I dunno. It's hard to tell these days. Early forties? Maybe?"
Josie nods. Today is her forty-fifth birthday. She finds it hard to believe. Once she'd been young and she'd thought forty-five would come slow and impossible. She'd thought forty-five would be another world. But it came fast and it's not what she thought it would be. She glances at Walter, at the fading glory of him, and she wonders how different things would be if she hadn't met him.
She'd been thirteen when they met. He was quite a bit older than her; well, a lot older than her, in fact. Everyone was shocked at the time, except her. Married at nineteen. A baby at twenty-two. Another one at twenty-four. A life lived in fast-forward and now, apparently, she should peak and crest and then come slowly, contentedly down the other side, but it doesn't feel as if there ever was a peak, rather an abyss formed of trauma that she keeps circling and circling with a knot of dread in the pit of her stomac...
Josie can feel her husband's discomfort as they enter the golden glow of the gastropub. She's walked past this place a hundred times. Thought: Not for us. Everyone too young. Food on the chalkboard outside she's never heard of. What is bottarga? But this year her birthday has fallen on a Saturday and this year she did not say, Oh, a takeaway and a bottle of wine will be fine, when Walter had asked what she wanted to do. This year she thought of the honeyed glow of the Lansdowne, the buzz of chatter, the champagne in ice buckets on outdoor tables on warm summer days, and she thought of the little bit of money her grandmother had left her last month in her will, and she'd looked at herself in the mirror and tried to see herself as the sort of person who celebrated her birthday in a gastropub in Queen's Park and she'd said, "We should go out for dinner."
"OK then," Walter had said. "Anywhere in mind?"
And she'd said, "The Lansdowne. You know. On Salusbury Road."
He'd simply raised an eyebrow at her and said, "Your birthday. Your choice."
He holds the door open for her now and she passes through. They stand marooned for a moment by a sign that says "Please wait here to be seated" and Josie gazes around at the early-evening diners and drinkers, her handbag pinioned against her stomach by her arms.
"Fair," she says to the young man who appears holding a clipboard. "Josie. Table booked for seven thirty."
He smiles from her to Walter and back again and says, "For two, yes?"
They are led to a nice table in a corner. Walter on a banquette, Josie on a velvet chair. Their menus are handed to them clipped to boards. She'd looked up the menu online earlier, so she'd be able to google stuff if she didn't know what it was, so she already knows what she's having. And they're ordering champagne. She doesn't care what Walter thinks.
Her attention is caught by a noisy entrance at the pub door. A woman walks in clutching a balloon with the words "Birthday Queen" printed on it. Her hair is winter blond, cut into a shape that makes it move like liquid. She wears wide-legged trousers and a top made of two pieces of black cloth held together with laces at the sides. Her skin is burnished. Her smile is wide. A group soon follows behind her, other similarly aged people; someone is holding a bouquet of flowers; another carries a selection of posh gift bags.
"Alix Summer!" says the woman in a voice that carries. "Table for fourteen."
"Look," says Walter, nudging her gently. "Another birthday girl."
Josie nods distractedly. "Yes," she says. "Looks like it."
The group follows the waiter to a table just across from Josie's. Josie sees three ice buckets already on the table, each holding two bottles of chilled champagne. They take their seats noisily, shouting about who should sit where and not wanting to sit next to their husbands, for God's sake, and the woman called Alix Summer directs them all with that big smile while a tall man with red hair who is probably her husband takes the balloon from her hand and ties it to a chair back. Soon they are all seated, and the first bottles of champagne are popped and poured into fourteen glasses held out by fourteen people with tanned arms and gold bracelets and crisp white shirtsleeves and they all bring their glasses together, those at the furthest ends of the table getting to their feet to reach across the table, and they all say, "To Alix! Happy birthday!"
Josie fixes the woman in her gaze. "How old do you reckon she is?" she asks Walter.
"Christ. I dunno. It's hard to tell these days. Early forties? Maybe?"
Josie nods. Today is her forty-fifth birthday. She finds it hard to believe. Once she'd been young and she'd thought forty-five would come slow and impossible. She'd thought forty-five would be another world. But it came fast and it's not what she thought it would be. She glances at Walter, at the fading glory of him, and she wonders how different things would be if she hadn't met him.
She'd been thirteen when they met. He was quite a bit older than her; well, a lot older than her, in fact. Everyone was shocked at the time, except her. Married at nineteen. A baby at twenty-two. Another one at twenty-four. A life lived in fast-forward and now, apparently, she should peak and crest and then come slowly, contentedly down the other side, but it doesn't feel as if there ever was a peak, rather an abyss formed of trauma that she keeps circling and circling with a knot of dread in the pit of her stomac...
