After all, isn’t that why we love unrealistic horror movies, because we can watch but still feel detached from it all? Unfortunately, Josie isn’t content to just complain about her own husband … Alix’s husband is also subject to Josie’s scathing opinions.

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. Even if Josie was the instigator, even if she wasn’t groomed, Walter still willingly entered a relationship with a teenage girl (while married with kids, and having a mistress). In Alix, her birthday twin, Josie sees an opportunity to change it all by convincing Alix a couple days later to feature her in her next podcast, promising to share her secrets and show listeners her transformation. The softly spoken, fifty-something babysitter left half an hour ago and the house is tidy, the dishwasher hums, the cat is pawing its way meaningfully across the long sofa toward Alix, already purring before Alix’s hand has even found her fur. She issues a quiet “Bye then” as she turns to leave and Alix beams at her and says, “Happy birthday, birthday twin!The plot promises an intricate exploration of psychological twists and turns, ensuring readers remain hooked throughout the entirety of this compelling thriller. First off, I am the last person to be excited by the premise of a true crime podcast/documentary/Netflix show etc. While the writing does an excellent job at slowly building an atmosphere of foreboding as Josie’s presence grows more insidious, when we learn in the novel that her story wasn’t the truth it’s expected not a surprise twist.

Alix comes into her life at just the right time--a podcast host, she is the perfect woman to help Josie share her intriguing story. Josie is adamant to involve in Alix’s life, creating coincidences to bump into her around her children’s schoolyard.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. The premise of this one had me really looking forward to it – a strange woman befriends a podcaster and drags her into her strange, dark world. Josie and Alix couldn’t be more different; they come from different lifestyles and circumstances, and yet… Could they be more similar than originally meets the eye?

So when she “accidentally” bumps into her “birthday twin” again, a few days later, and Josie suggests that she might be an interesting subject, because Alix can follow her AS she changes her life instead of after someone has ALREADY done so, Alix decides to record a “test session” to see how it goes. Jewell throws together two women-- birthday twins, born on the same day in the same hospital -- from very different backgrounds.

Your views on both of them undergo several U-turns via the plot revelations which makes for fascinating and at times, horrifying reading. those documentaries where you get to the end and think to yourself, “What the hell did I just watch?

There were a few holes in the narrative and a few times that I thought the story could have been a bit tighter and less repetitive.

Imagine if Lisa Jewell had chosen a different narrative structure from this novel and only told it from one point of view. Alix Summer, with her seemingly perfect life as a podcaster and her seemingly perfect family in their beautiful house, and Josie, a woman from a council estate with a past filled with abuse, grooming and who-knows-what other horrors. Finished this just now and it was okay, but also a huge missed opportunity, because I felt that the double twist of Josie possibly being right after all could have been delivered as a huge gut punch but instead it's just this small three page epilogue that only concerns a part of her narrative and feels like an afterthought, the equivalent of some cheap "gotcha" scene at the end of a horror film. 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. And, we have Josie, the original subject of the Podcast, a shy woman who always dresses in denim, and who carries her Pomchi dog, Fred, clutched close to her chest in a denim pouch, his collar and lead, both made of denim too.