Lisa Jewell is an English novelist, born in London in 1968, who began with romantic comedies such as “Ralph’s Party” and later moved into psychological thrillers including “Then She Was Gone”, “The Family Upstairs” and “None of This Is True”.
Jewell was born in the West End of London on 19 July 1968 and raised in Totteridge with her two younger sisters. She studied art and design at Barnet College and fashion illustration and promotion at Epsom School of Art and Design, then worked in fashion for several years, including a spell at Thomas Pink. After being made redundant she took a creative writing course, and a friend promised to buy her dinner if she wrote the first three chapters of a novel.
The result was “Ralph’s Party” (1999), which became the UK’s bestselling debut novel of that year. More contemporary fiction followed, among it “Thirtynothing”, “Vince and Joy” and “31 Dream Street” (published in the United States as “Roommates Wanted”), which won the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance in 2008. A follow-up to her debut, “After the Party”, appeared in 2010.
Her later books are darker. “The Family Upstairs” (2019) has a sequel, “The Family Remains” (2022), in which a bag of human bones is found on the banks of the Thames. “None of This Is True” (2023) follows Alix Summer, a popular podcaster, and Josie Fair, a woman with a troubled past who wants her story told. It won the British Book Awards for Crime and Thriller and for Fiction Audiobook in 2024, and was shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Netflix bought film rights to both “Then She Was Gone” and “None of This Is True” in 2024.
In 2024 Jewell also wrote “Breaking the Dark”, a Jessica Jones story that launched Marvel’s line of original crime novels. “Don’t Let Him In” (2025), about a con man and the women he deceives, won the 2026 Audie Award for Thriller or Suspense. Her most recent novel, “It Could Have Been Her”, was published in summer 2026.
Publication Order of The Family Upstairs Books
| The Family Upstairs | 2019 |
| The Family Remains | 2022 |
Publication Order of Ralph’s Party Books
| Ralph’s Party | 1999 |
| After the Party | 2010 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Thirtynothing | 2000 |
| One-Hit Wonder | 2001 |
| A Friend of the Family | 2003 |
| Vince and Joy | 2005 |
| 31 Dream Street / Roommates Wanted | 2007 |
| The Truth About Melody Browne | 2009 |
| The Making of Us | 2011 |
| Before I Met You | 2012 |
| The House We Grew Up In | 2013 |
| The Third Wife | 2014 |
| The Girls / The Girls in the Garden | 2015 |
| I Found You | 2016 |
| Then She Was Gone | 2017 |
| Watching You | 2018 |
| Invisible Girl | 2020 |
| The Night She Disappeared | 2021 |
| None of This Is True | 2023 |
| Breaking the Dark | 2024 |
| Don’t Let Him In | 2025 |
| It Could Have Been Her | 2026 |
Photo: Vogler, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).