those documentaries where you get to the end and think to yourself, “What the hell did I just watch? Her novels have sold over 10 million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into twenty-nine languages. As Josie slowly integrates herself into Alix’s life, into her very home, she’ll discover that Josie isn’t exactly who she portrays herself to be. Additionally, her use of mixed media, with the sections from the Netflix series, was amazingly well done; round of applause. I adored the unreliable characters, their dark secrets, the fateful collision of their two different worlds in the same corner of London.

Married to a man significantly older, she has decided to change the course of her life in her 45th year. 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 and The Night She Disappeared. Josie is mesmerised and fascinated and then she realises that Alix too is 45 today, they really are birthday twins!You know something isn’t quite right, there are red herrings making feel uncomfortable inside, but you want to dive into the murky water to see the creatures lurking there. Before you even start the book you know that someone isn’t telling the truth, so right away I know not to trust anything Josie says! One of the characters is an alcoholic, and it felt like they were given a free pass for their bad behavior, like I was expected to sympathize with them and understand why they behaved so poorly.

If I had my MSW daughter read this she would say Josie's actions throughout the book all stemmed from that unresolved trauma and she wouldn't be wrong. Told in a multimedia format, the way it is all laid out is easy to follow even allowing for the curious lack of page breaks, and it also ensures that the plot moves at a reasonably brisk pace.

Things escalate to such a degree you find yourself furiously turning pages in disbelief and yes, there are some jaw droppers! As the birthday celebrations get underway, a chance encounter between Josie and Alix reveals they not only share the same birth date, but they were also born in the same hospital, on the same day, and went to the same school. Alix is convinced by Josie to make her the subject and storyline of her next podcast which reaches out to thousands of women suffering domestic and psychological abuse, and women who enjoy hearing other life stories.

She is about to say something else about the coincidence of their births when the toilet door opens and one of Alix’s friends walks in. Saturday, 8 June, 2019 Josie can feel her husband’s discomfort as they enter the golden glow of the gastropub. If it was a twist it’s too late in the novel so it’s just frustrating, if it’s just Josie being Josie it didn’t sell it to me. We both ended up with similar feelings on None of This Is True, and foremost agreed that it was a compulsive, must read suspense tale. Choose a true crime podcast to listen to and compare and contrast the narration approach with Alix’s podcast.I know this is fiction but I could not ignore certain aspects of the story no matter how much I tried.

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. She worked for the fashion chain Warehouse for three years as a PR assistant and then for Thomas Pink, the Jermyn Street shirt company for four years as a receptionist and PA. The other woman is Josie Fair, married with her husband two times older than her, mother of 2 daughters in twenties, a teen mother, who is unsatisfied with her life and her unaccomplished dreams. 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. A few days later Josie approaches Alix as she’s waiting to pick her children up outside school, and says she’s been listening to her podcasts, and wants to know if Alix will feature her, not as a successful woman, but as a woman who has some dark secrets but is about to change her life completely.This involvement escalates to stalking, stealing items from Alix's house, lurking around, critiquing her marriage, and manipulating her by portraying Alix's husband as worse than her own. For some reason I like the twisted minds of someone with their own agenda, and the anticipation of what will happen next. Josie lets Alix into her life and history through the podcast and Alix, in turn, gradually lets Josie into her life too. There’s lots of tension, some great twists, together with some very dark and complex characters, as Ms Jewell expertly peels back the layers with consummate skill to reveal an intricate and twisted tale that’s such a worthy read. All along I’d been painting Roxy in these tiny splashes of dark back story without every really exploring what a child like that might end up being capable of, especially with a pedophile for a father, a narcissist for a grandmother, and a sociopath for a mother.