I listened to This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum in record time. What an incredible debut / audiobook.

Part suspense thriller, part love story, it’s about two best friends, Benny and Joy, who run a famous ‘survival against all odds’ podcast. Each episode presents one weird and true story full of their hallmark banter and humor. They have diehard fans, and Joy’s husband, Xavier, manages the financial empire that has grown around the podcast.

Joy also has severe narcolepsy. She and Benny met when she fell asleep outside a restroom during a live music performance. Benny checked she was okay and that was it—besties for life. They’ve never been lovers, but you sense that was due to a right-person-wrong-time scenario.

The story opens with them taping an episode of their podcast at the studio in Joy’s house as the Santa Ana winds pick up outside. Joy never leaves her home due to the regimented life that helps manage her narcolepsy. Besides, she has a stalker.

The next morning, Benny turns up to discover a smashed window, a missing car, and no Joy or Xavier. With each passing day, the police, the paparazzi, and the public focus on Benny as the prime suspect. Meanwhile, he desperately searches for answers in previous episodes of the podcast and Joy’s unfinished memoir, which no one has read.

As he discovers secrets from Joy’s life, her disappearance takes on a darker tone, and he doesn’t know whom to trust.

The audiobook production adds an intriguing element, since it leans into the podcast medium. We hear snippets of various episodes and phone calls made to the tip hotline with ‘sightings’ of Joy and Xavier. Julia Whelan is outstanding as Joy, and Sean Patrick Hopkins gives a heartfelt performance as an increasingly desperate Benny.

The story is told through a dual timeline until past and present converge, finally revealing all the twists of a clever, complex plot.

It’s a winner!