How Lisa Jewell Allowed Herself to Get 'Creepy and Weird' Writing Latest Novel (Exclusive)

"None of This Is True," author Lisa Jewell's 21st novel, is out now

Lisa Jewell set out to make a book about a stalker. It wasn't until she saw a strange man through his window, though, that an idea began to materialize.

The London-based author's latest novel, her 21st book to date, is the thriller None of This Is True, which begins with two strangers, Josie and Alix, celebrating their 45th birthdays at the same pub.

They briefly joke about being "birthday twins," but Josie, a housewife brimming with dark secrets, can't let go of the coincidence and finagles her way into the life of Alix, a podcaster with a seemingly perfect family. Naturally, things turn dark from there.

"I wanted to do a stalker novel, a little bit of a Single White Female-y thing because I'd never written about that. But I couldn't find a hook," Jewell, 55, tells PEOPLE. "The things that make me want to start books are normally tiny, like seeing a person or a house."

That inspiration came when, she recalls, "I saw this guy sitting in the window of his apartment; a nondescript, middle-aged guy just staring at his laptop on this slightly scruffy, rundown backstreet of Kilburn near where I live."

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Something about the moment "spoke to me," says Jewell — who admittedly felt "creepy" at the time.

"I just felt like there was something going on with him. I don't know why I thought this. I literally saw him for all of 10 seconds. I thought afterward, 'I'm so creepy and weird, aren't I? That I see men through windows and start obsessing about them!' "

The writer let her mind run wild, though, building disturbing scenarios about the stranger she glanced at. Those brainstorms morphed into None of This Is True.

"I envisioned a room in the background of his apartment with a closed door and something behind that door. I wasn't sure what it was going to be: a dead body, someone being held against their will? Something dark. The only way I was going to find out was to write the book."

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The author behind such suspenseful and twisted books as Then She Was Gone (2017), The Family Upstairs (2019) and The Family Remains (2022) doesn't have trouble separating the dark subject matter from her everyday life.

"Some writers are less compartmentalized than I am," says Jewell. "But most thriller writers I know are very good at [knowing] that's the place you go when you're working. When you're actually writing, you're just writing words on a screen. It doesn't feel dark when you're doing it."

"It's only afterwards," she says, "when you re-read what you've written that you can see what you've done!"

And Jewell says her characters are just as far removed from her real life.

"I've had a lot of time of not needing to bring myself into the books anymore, and I am not in the books anymore," she says. "What I observe and see in the world is in the books, but not my own experience."

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When she's done writing a book, too, Jewell says she's mostly diligent about severing ties to the stories, not letting them linger in her psyche. Mostly.

"I'm quite heartless when it comes to finishing a book and wanting to move on," she says. "But, if anybody ever mentions any character in any of my books, immediately their face is there in my mind. I know exactly who they are. They're all important to me."

None of This Is True is out now wherever books are sold.

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