None of This Is True
Lisa Jewell's 2023 thriller opens at a North London pub on the night of Alix Summer's forty-fifth birthday, where Alix, a successful podcaster who interviews women at midlife, runs into another woman celebrating the same birthday. The other woman, Josie Fair, looks ordinary, lives in a flat above a kebab shop with an older husband and two adult daughters, and tells Alix that her own life is about to change beyond all recognition and would make a perfect subject for the next podcast. Alix agrees, mostly out of professional curiosity, and begins recording sessions in her home studio. Josie's story turns out to be far darker than advertised, and as it unfolds Josie quietly insinuates herself into Alix's marriage and her children's lives. Jewell builds the novel as a faux true-crime project, mixing transcripts and Netflix documentary excerpts, and the result became one of her biggest bestsellers.
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On her forty-fifth birthday, podcaster Alix Summer meets a stranger at the same restaurant who shares her exact birthday. When the woman, Josie, asks Alix to record her life, Alix says yes. She should not have.
Yes. None of This Is True (2023) is Lisa Jewell's psychological thriller about a podcaster who becomes entangled with a stranger she meets on her birthday. It was a New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club pick.
Yes. Hello Sunshine optioned None of This Is True. As of 2025, the project is in development.
None of This Is True was written by Lisa Jewell, published in 2023 by Penguin Books, Limited.
None of This Is True is 384 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, None of This Is True takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
None of This Is True is a standalone novel by Lisa Jewell, not part of a series.
None of This Is True is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
