INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA COVER TO COVER BOOK CLUB PICK “Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect.” –Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author “A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read.” –Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author From the New York Times –Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author
From the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.
Be careful who you let in.
Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.
She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well–and she is on a collision course to meet them.
Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.
In The Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.
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“The weakness of men lay at the root of every bad thing that had ever happened.”
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This was my first Lisa Jewell book and I enjoyed it, however, I was hoping for and expecting something more “edge of my seat”/suspense-ish which this was not for me. Yes, kinda creepy and a good, fast read, but I would not categorize it as a thriller. I would like to try another book by Lisa Jewell because I really liked her writing style so if anyone has a suggestion, please let me know.
I loved the creepy closed-room feel of Lisa Jewell’s latest domestic suspense thriller. It’s heartbreaking, exciting, and unexpectedly uplifting all at the same time. Great read!
This book was easy to finish in one night. I liked the way the author built the characters and the way their lives intertwined. The ending makes you believe there could be more drama continuing out of this story.
The Family Upstairs is a psychological suspense-thriller of which the very fabric of the story weaves around the disintegration of a family’s psyche spiraling slowly away from sanity under the misguided ideals of a spiritual huckster. Lisa Jewell tells the story from the POVs of three of the family members.
On her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones receives a much-anticipated letter that holds the answers to her past. Finally, she will learn the identity of her birth parents, and of the home, she was born into. What she is not expecting is the inheritance of a grand mansion, albeit run-down, on Cheyne Walk in the heart of Chelsea, one of London’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Nor is Libby prepared to learn of the dark, sinister past of the inhabitants of her newly inherited home.
The Family Upstairs moves fluidly from past to present. Henry is the voice of the past; his narrative told in the first person. We learn from Henry that he is the son of parents who rose from mediocrity and anonymity to flashy socialites amongst London’s elite circles. We also spend time with a woman named Lucy, Henry’s sister, who is homeless with two children and a dog in southeastern France living near the Cote d’Azur and who is waiting, as Lucy’s son vaguely understands for ‘the baby to turn twenty-five.
It is Henry who takes us on the journey of his family’s descent into madness. From their glitzy glamourous wasteful lifestyle in the 1980s to their slow metamorphosis into austerity and monk-like living. Houseguests who have come to stay and never leave take over the Lamb’s lives as neatly and furtively as sheep led to slaughter. One of the guests, in particular, David Thomsen, arrives with arms aloft and a big bright smile for everyone. It does not take Henry long to realize that his father’s role as head of the house has been usurped by the enigmatic, megalomaniac smooth-talking, David, who holds Henry’s mother in his thrall. In every way, David cuckolds the Lamb’s life using the tactics that are emblematic of so many cult leaders, control, and suppression followed by instilling the desired behaviors that the leader wants while keeping his or her followers isolated and cut off from the rest of the world.
Throughout this psychological takeover, Henry battles internal struggles of his budding homosexuality and parts of himself that do not look too different from the man he hates with a burning passion.
There are some twists and turns toward the end as secrets find their way toward the light, and we learn that all is not what we thought.
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
I have read most of this authors books and this ranks up at the top with the rest. This book weaves a tale told from various viewpoints of the characters both past and present which made for a very interesting story! Once I started and really got involved with what was going on in the beautiful mansion with the families, it was very hard to put down! Thank you Netgalley and the Publishers for allowing me to read this ARC and give my honest opinion.
Although some of the elements of the story were not believable, it didn’t diminish the character nor the story.
WOW. Holy shit wow. I was so afraid that I was allowing the Bookstagram hype to get into my head too much over this book…and that when I finally got to read it I’d be sorely disappointed.
I had no reason to be afraid. And it was even better than I thought it could possibly be.
If you’re looking for an action packed thriller than this isn’t it. This is a slow burn. This slowly sinks it’s claws into your brain and by the time you’ve realized it it’s got a grip and it won’t let go.
It’s told from a couple of points of view and 2 timelines and every chapter it switches so you’re basically always getting JUST enough before taking it away and feeding you something new.
I started last night and I’m already done even though I’m tired and should be sleeping because my kids, much like myself, are early risers. And now here I am, everyone is asleep, and I don’t know wtf to do with myself. WORTH IT.
Kept me interested in reading on, as all her books do. Sometimes hard to follow which character was speaking, though it got easier as the story progressed.
This was a nice thriller, dare I say a happy thriller? Sure, horrible things happened, but there are happy endings for most of the living characters. Families are united, people don’t have to worry about money, and a trip of a lifetime closes out the book. Sounds pretty sweet to me. Sure the trip might not end well for someone, but eh, that’s for another book.
The book flowed well, even with the changes between three different people. Lisa Jewell does a good job building the characters quickly, so you get a good feel for them. Her descriptions of the scenes and architecture of the house are well written. Just enough, but not so much that I became bored and started skimming.
So why did I give it a three instead of five stars? Because, for me, it wasn’t thrilling. The tension never ratcheted up very high, maybe medium at best. Although many people die in The Family Upstairs, only one death had me thinking, “Daaang!” But even that death was more, “Way to go!” then, “Oh, the horror!”
I wouldn’t say don’t read The Family Upstairs, but maybe put if off a bit and read some of the books on your TBR pile that you’re really excited about.
One of my top 5 books of the year. I wanted to read it again as soon as I finished. The sacrifices we make for our families are always great but none as monumental as Henry and Lucy, made for each other. This book shows how evil can take over a family and cause so much damage it takes 25 years to recover. not to mention the damage done to their own families. I recommend this book and warn you wont be able to put it down
Well, THAT happened…
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt throughout a lot of this one. Jewell has crafted a bizarre, Shirley-Jackson-esque gothic family drama with cults and lost children and murder and suspicion and secrets and guilt and a host of other things that are almost overwhelming in their entirety but somehow work (mostly) seamlessly. The blurb led me to expect something very different – and while that’s usually a recipe for disaster, here it worked out better than expected.
The tale unfolds in three alternating voices. I don’t always like that as a construct, although in a complex tale like this one, where every narrator is unreliable either intentionally or unintentionally, it is probably the only way to tell the story without resorting to massive telling (as opposed to showing) along the way.
I generally find it to result in a bit of a jumpy ride – it’s inevitable that one narrative voice will resonate stronger or spark more interest, given that by definition the voices are different. It can mean uneven pacing and action, as revelations are often unevenly presented to turn the three voices into the full picture necessary to tell a well-rounded story. That occasionally happened here, but generally speaking I found all of the voices to carry their own narrative strengths and pull their own weight. The ride was mostly an even one, right up until the end.
The end felt a little rushed, given the slow burning build of the entire book to that point. Suddenly Libby found just the right people to answer all of her questions at the exact point in which she would otherwise have been left floundering… I realize that if she hadn’t, things would have had nowhere to go – but it still felt a little too pat and coincidental. Still, there were a few more tricks up Jewell’s sleeves once things started rolling downhill, revelation-wise, and the resulting winding-up bits were still entertaining even if they felt a little over-plotted.
Jewell has written a great, atmospheric thriller of the type you don’t see as often anymore (hence the Shirley Jackson reference – this one had definite We Have Always Lived in the Castle moments, in the best possible way). The story is entertaining, odd, creepy, and well-written and I’m definitely going to be looking for more from her!
My review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Lisa Jewell delivers an atmospheric, dark, and disturbing thriller about menacing power, decades-old secrets, guilt, and one woman’s desire to understand her own history and get to know the family she never realized existed.
As The Family Upstairs opens, Libby, who was adopted when she was ten months old, receives a letter she has known would be en route to her when she reached her twenty-fifth birthday. And she learns that she has inherited the house that belonged to her parents. She learns that her once-wealthy parents died on the kitchen floor of the home, along with an unidentified man, with whom they entered into a suicide pact. She was born into a cult, and had an older brother and sister whose whereabouts have remained a mystery for the past quarter century. The run-down house is boarded up and largely uninhabitable, but still valuable. Lucy enlists the assistance of Miller Roe, the reporter who penned the article that provides her first glimpse into her family history. Miller was never able to find all of the answers he sought, becoming so obsessed with the story that his marriage fell apart. “I was literally a research zombie,” he explains. “IT was all I talked about, all I thought about.” Now that he has connected with “the baby,” who was known then as Serenity Lamb, he is eager to resume the search — and for redemption.
Meanwhile, in Nice, Lucy, a musician, her two young children, and dog have been rendered homeless. She must find a way to provide for her son and daughter, even if it means returning to the abusive husband she left ten years ago.
Via a first-person narrative, a man named Henry relates the story of his childhood.
Jewell expertly employs the three alternating narratives to weave a haunting, noir-like mystery. Who was the mystery man whose body was found in the kitchen with those of Libby’s parents? What became of her older brother and sister — are they dead or alive? What happened to her parents’ fortune? And why do the doors on the bedroom doors in the house lock from the exterior (hallway) side? Henry relates how his seemingly normal childhood was gradually transformed when another couple and their two children, Phin and Clemency, arrived and took up residence in his parents’ house. He notes that, with the benefit of hindsight, he can “see exactly the tipping points, the pivots upon which fate twisted and turned, upon which the storyline warped so hideously.”
To learn precisely what happened at 16 Cheyne Walk all those years ago, Libby and Miller follow a series of clues that lead them to people who experienced those “tipping points,” along with Henry. What they don’t realize — and Jewell skillfully reveals at deftly-plotted intervals — is that others who know what happened in that house have been waiting for “the baby” to grow up and on the occasion of her twenty-fifth birthday, they are on their way back. Will there be a reunion of sorts?
The Family Upstairs is a dark, sinister story about manipulation and abuse, and the impact upon the victims. It is a tale of betrayal, abandonment, and disappointment. It is a study of the unique ways individuals react to extreme circumstances and events, and the lifelong impact upon survivors. It is a compelling mystery, full of unexpected twists and turns, populated by a cast of intriguing characters. At the heart of the story is Libby, an earnest, hard-working young woman who just wants to know her family’s history. But Libby cannot imagine or predict how disturbing the truth actually is, much less how discovering it might put her in danger. Readers will find themselves haunted by Jewell’s jaw-dropping conclusion.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book!
Outstanding. So compelling, twisty-turny and riveting. I just couldn’t stop reading.
Whenever I pick up a Lisa Jewell novel I know I’m for a compelling, immersive and unputdownable read and The Family Upstairs is one of her very best. It’s an intriguing, claustrophobic and compelling mystery about a family that comes to stay and refuses to leave. I hugely enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down.
Libby Jones, age 25, has just received a letter from a solicitor. She is the sole beneficiary of a trust which is a large home in Chelsea worth 6-7 million pounds. Libby knows that she was adopted when she was a baby. That was when her birth parents were found dead and her teenage brother and sister missing. Libby was found unharmed in her crib. At the time, her name was Serenity and her adoptive parents renamed her.
Libby’s father, Henry Lamb, had inherited the Chelsea home and all of his father’s money. He spent and spent until it was all gone.
One day, a woman named Birdie comes to stay in their home to use it as a backdrop for a musical video. Libby and her brother are suspicious of Birdie because she acts strangely. Next thing you know, a man named David arrives and everything changes.
This is a book that is OK. The characters were difficult to keep up with. How someone could get into a fix like this is truly quite mind-boggling. Of course, there are really weak people out there, so who knows? I have enjoyed other books by Lisa Jewell and admire her writing. This one was a bit meh for me though.
Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
/ 5
Well then, The Family Upstairs may only be my second time reading Lisa Jewell but I already consider her to be one of my favorite authors. This book was creepy, atmospheric, and everything I could ask for from a nice slow burn!
The Family Upstairs switches back and forth from Henry in the late 1980s/early ’90s to present which is a woman named Lucy, and a 20-something named Libby. I really enjoyed the different viewpoints, and I loved how doing this built suspense. When Libby inherits the house in Chelsea and goes out to see it, I was instantly transported to how it looked through the way Jewell described it. I could completely imagine it in my mind and I really would love this to be a movie, it would be fantastic!
I do think that The Family Upstairs is a slow burn, and it didn’t get quite as crazy as I thought it would. I don’t know if I am just becoming immune to thrillers or what it is, but it didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would based on some reviews I have read. However, I still really liked the pacing and it was almost impossible for me to put this book down! Plus there were definitely a couple jaw dropping moments, and one part that literally had me cheering out loud in Lucy’s POV.
Final Thought: I really love the way Jewell writes and the way she brings things together in her novels. The ending of The Family Upstairs was chilling, and there are going to be so many people that love this book. It was full of suspense, and of course it has a gorgeous cover which is always a bonus. And… a poison garden!! Well, not completely, but it did have aspects of the poison garden in The Turn of the Key which was pretty cool. I have no idea where Jewell gets her ideas from, all I know is I can’t wait to read more of her books!
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book, all opinions and thoughts are my own.
Libby finally receives a letter about her inheritance. She is hoping to get some answers to several questions about her life. Why she was left alone as a baby? What happened to her parents? Her brother and sister?
This novel is told in three voices. Libby, Lucy and Henry. Libby is searching to find out who she is. Then, there is Lucy. I don’t even know where to begin with her. Her life is just messed up. And finally, Henry. Henry is more of an enigma. The experiences these kids had growing up really changes their course in life.
Well! This book is insane! It is insanely good! Let me tell you! There are so many twists and turns and manipulations. As a reader, you don’t know who is who or what is what! I fell right into the spell of Libby and her situation. I did not want to put this book down. I was completely captivated, mesmerized, enthralled by this story! DO NOT MISS THIS ONE Y’ALL!
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review. I also received a copy at Book Expo 2019.
Those familiar with Lisa Jewell will recognize her penchant for locked doors and secret family connections in her new novel, The Family Upstairs. Jewell has a flair for portraying extreme family dysfunction in a way that carefully treads the line of credulity, given the outrageousness of its complicated plotting. In this book, Libby Jones is Jewell’s main heroine: a strait-laced young woman whose life has been meticulously controlled and planned after a chaotic upbringing by a foster mother who was caring but haphazard. Her organized life is turned upside down, however, when she receives notice that she has reached the age of inheritance from her birth family’s estate. Libby learns that she is now the owner of the mansion where her parents died of mysterious circumstances almost 25 years ago when she was a baby. From the articles she has read, investigators assumed that a suicide pact among cult members was the likeliest explanation, and that there were other children in the house who were never located. She was found abandoned but in good health when the bodies were discovered. What Libby will soon discover is that her acquisition of the house has also spurred others to return to the site with agendas of their own. Jewell slowly unpeels the true events of the deaths in the house through alternating points-of-view from the children who were party to the events. With its many twists and connections, unreliable narrators and biases, The Family Upstairs is an addictive read that compels the reader to willingly swallow largely unbelievable plotlines with relish. The novel could be described as a combination of Flowers in the Attic (by VC Andrews) and Helter Skelter (Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry) or other stories of cults/extreme family-based societies. With an ending that is satisfying but tantalizingly open-ended, Jewell’s latest will provide her fans with some more exciting hours of reading pleasure.
Thanks to the author, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
I realize that I’m in the minority on this one, but The Family Upstairs just didn’t do it for me. It’s told from three perspectives, which wouldn’t be a problem except that one of those perspectives is written in first person while the other two are in third. I understand the reasoning behind it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a distraction for me. There are a fair amount of characters to keep up with, but they are distinctive enough to keep them sorted in my mind. The problem is that the story gets bogged down in unnecessary mundane details. I can appreciate well-drawn characters and painting a picture to show where they’re coming from so the reader can get to know them, but this goes a little too far with that – so far that the three characters the story focuses on start to drift away from the plot at times. This one still could’ve been an okay story for me, but the more I read, the more I felt like it just didn’t live up to its potential. This book had the potential to be an excellent dark and gritty story, but it’s stretched to the point of being convoluted, and that was just disappointing.
I’m a big fan of Lisa’s books and had hoped to save it for my holiday next week, but failed miserably by devouring The Family Upstairs as soon as it arrived. I was hooked from the first page, I think it’s her best yet and hands down my favourite book so far this year.