None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

When you’ve been a writing teacher for as long as I have, it’s impossible to read a novel, especially a popular one, without picking it apart. How did the author do that? What can I learn? Recently, I read Lisa Jewell’s best-selling novel, None of This is True, which was a sort of master class in suspense writing. Here are 3 things I learned.

But first, this is what the book is about.

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 45th 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. Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

What I learned:

1. Character is everything.

This novel has lots of twists and turns. It was no accident that Jewell titled it: None of this is True. But the reason I cared about all the twists was because I cared about the characters. Which is not to say I liked them. Even the protagonist was not all that endearing, but I felt like I knew her. What Alix feared, who she loved, where she hurt. I HAD to know what was going to happen to her. It made me realize that although you think suspense novel are about plot, the best ones are about character.

2. Suspense is about making the reader wait.

Jewell is not afraid to draw out a scene. I can’t be too specific without giving away spoilers. But there’s a scene where the reader knows something terrible has happened. We’re watching someone enter a house and search through it and by the time she finally finds the terrible thing, I was panting. Jewell makes you live in that moment. It made me realize that suspense is about slowing down time.

3. The pandemic is an effective obstacle.

I’ve read a lot of books about the pandemic lately. Many of them have been thoughtful explorations of grief and loss. But this is the first one I’ve read where the pandemic becomes an element in the unrolling of the suspense. The novel begins around 2019 and the pandemic doesn’t hit until two-thirds through, when things have already started to get intense for the protagonist. The pandemic makes things worse. It makes it harder for her to reach people. It also isolates her and it means her children are home, which makes her more vulnerable. It made me realize that suspense is all about throwing obstacles at your character.

How about you? Are you a Lisa Jewell fan?

SUSAN BREEN is the award-winning author of The Fiction Class and the Maggie Dove mystery series. She is the 2024 winner of the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition. Her new novel, MERRY, is forthcoming from Alcove Press in Fall 2025.