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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This was nothing like I had expected when I first read the description, but it was still such a good story. Sometimes it was a little hard for me to follow but my confusion never lasted long. It was exciting, unpredictable and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Had so many twists and turns that it kept me guessing right up until the end.
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of The Family Upstairs in exchange for an honest review.
The Family Upstairs is a thriller / mystery told from different voices. We meet Libby, who has just turned 25, and inherited a large house in a posh neighborhood. Since she was adopted as a baby, she knows nothing about her birth family. We also meet Lucy, the daughter of the people whose house Libby inherits, as well as Henry, the son of the people.
As Libby goes to view the house, she wants to know more about the family and the past. And so, we are told the story of the parents, the children – Henry and Lucy, and the people who came to live in the house with them. First it was Birdie and Justin, a pair of musicians, and then the family who came to live in their home and slowly take it over – The Thomsens, David and Sally, and their children, Clemency and Phin.
What is revealed is how and why the Lambs were found dead, along with David Thomsen, and what happened to the rest of the family. It is quite sinister indeed, and the ending is eerie, but not unexpected.
What I liked – the novel was a quick read, and the mystery was good.
What I didn’t like – I felt that Libby was too accepting of the family, even after hearing all of the back story. However, the ending made it clear as to why the family was accepting of her.
Creepy!
#TheFamilyUpstairs #LisaJewell
A gripping tale of a family whose lives become twisted and forever altered by the choices of the parents. Once you think you have the story figured out you are thrown another twist. Hard to put this one down.
The Family Upstairs ! What are they hiding (cover)
A lot I can tell you !!
The family is so crazy you just have to know which one is crazier .
What happened in this house and how did the neighbours not even notice for the most part !!
The pages will turn. You will be suspicious of them all !
That’s all I am willing to say , as this is one book you can’t describe : BUT YOU MUST READ IT !!
Lisa Jewell never disappoints.
Perhaps my family isnt so crazy after all !
Thanks to Net Galley and Atria books for the great, scary, haunting read !!!!!
Libby Jones, a.k.a., Serenity, receives a letter on her 25th birthday informing her that she has inherited a big Victorian mansion that was in her family years before. Libby was left an orphan at 10 months and was adopted. From there, the story starts to unfold with numerous characters, plots and in somewhat of a confusing fashion. I really liked this book but I found it very confusing. Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC of this very interesting and confusing read in exchange for an honest review.
Lisa Jewell delivers a novel that will have the reader enthralled well after they have finished the last chapter. The story is told from multiple perspectives and periods in time. It is not a quick read, it needs to be appreciated and absorbed. The writing is outspend and everything one is to expect of Jewell. She layered mystery around fantastic, well developed characters while holding steady to an dark, ominous underpinning. Absolutely loved this. 5 stars.
Thank you to #NetGalley for this ARC of #TheFamilyUpstairs, which I read and reviewed voluntarily. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS by Lisa Jewell is told from the point of view of three characters: Libby, Henry and Lucy as well as two time periods. Libby Jones has turned twenty-five and receives a letter that tells her the identity of her birth parents and that she has inherited their old mansion in a ritzy area of London.
The plot is set mainly in England and France. Twenty-five years ago, the police found a baby and three dead adults in the mansion. The other people that lived there are gone, including several children. Was it suicide, murder or a combination of both? Where are the other people that lived in the house? What was really happening in this mansion?
The plot is clever and shocking, but it does switch POV and timelines throughout the book. Despite this not being my favorite style of writing, it is a tribute to Jewell’s talent that I still felt it deserved 4 stars. The story is dark, twisted and disturbing as well as being a page-turner. The characters are complex with more depth to them that most authors can inject in a trilogy.
While this is the first book I have read by Jewell, I look forward to reading more of her novels.
Many thanks to Atria Books, Lisa Jewell and Net Galley for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
The Family Upstairs is told in 3 perspectives, we have Lucy, a single mom to a tween boy and a young girl. She’s been struggling for years and is homeless. She normally makes her money busking with her fiddle until some teens broke it. Now she needs to pay the repair bill so she can get her children off the streets.
Then we have Libby, who tells our main story about inheriting a house upon her 25th birthday. As she researches her long lost family, certain horrors come to light. It appears they were in a cult, and her parents died as part of a suicide pact. But she doesn’t have the whole story and she wants to know more.
Lastly, we have Henry, and his story is mostly told in the past. His parents are the ones that own the house on Cheyne Walk, and he’s watched his family descent from a wealthy, to-do family, to practically nothing. With ill health and no possessions, this man David that his mother has welcomed into their lives is tightening the reins with every day, and Henry fears none of them will make it out.
Libby is the center of our story because as an infant, she was the lone survivor of what happened on 16 Cheyne Walk. Her brother and sister were never found and so she has no way to really piece together this mystery of what happened and why she was left behind. I think out of the three views of the story, Henry’s was the one that was the most bone-chilling, because we watch this man David completely take over their lives, and Henry’s mother is just so enamored with him, she not only lets him do this, but she thinks it’s an absolute blessing. Even though Libby is at the center of the story, she doesn’t stand out as a character compared to Henry and Lucy.
I read some other reviews that people didn’t much care for the varying timelines and points of view, but I’m a big fan of authors giving the readers just enough to keep them needing more and that’s exactly what Jewell has done here. We need to find out what really happened. We want Libby to put together the puzzle, we want Lucy to find that better life for her children, and we really want Henry to get out of the hell that is his life.
I loved watching the story come together and I think Jewell did it incredibly well. We have a huge cast of characters, and if you’re paying attention, it’s easy to put together the family tree of who’s who. I found myself screaming at David’s mother, the nerve of just letting the family slip into nothing because she’s putting her happiness before her husbands and her children. Dark and creepy, The Family Upstairs was a super fun read.
I felt lost and confused for the first couple chapters of this story. I’m pretty sure that was intentional. Even as you get further in and more is revealed, The Family Upstairs leaves you off-balanced and unsettled right until the very last page. There’s an unravelling of a mystery and the past, of multiple characters and their points of view. It was an interesting read, written in a different kind of way, that left me questioning things at the end. In a good way.
I have tried to read from this author before and it didn’t go quite as good, so I decided to see if I could finish this one.
The Family Upstairs is told from 3 point-of-views and we get scenes from both past and present. While some of the storytelling is compelling, it gets clouded with all the information the author is telling us because it’s all over the place.
Try as I might, me and this author just aren’t on the same page. That doesn’t mean she isn’t a good author, she is, but I am just not a fan of her writing style. I had difficulty keep up with the timelines and POV’s since there are no headers on the chapters. I do think that was done intentionally to keep us confused with who was actually who and what was actually what.
But it wasn’t my typical type of read.
Libby was adopted as baby and has recollection of her blood family. She inherits a mansion in the heart of Chelsea, which means her birth parents were rich at some point. Upon receiving this information, she is thrust into a new era of her life. She meets some seemingly good people.
Not all goes well when she starts digging into the past. Who and why becomes so much more than she ever expected.
Someone out doesn’t want her around. And finding out the mystery surrounding her parents death might cause her more trouble than it’s worth.
Despite my initial dislike of the book, it grew on my from the last 80% of the book. This is when plot really starts rolling and I found the book to chilling and very very disturbing.
This ARC was generously provided by Netgalley and Atria Books.
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell a four-star read that was almost a five. I enjoyed the drama and suspense it was so enthralling, but I got a little confused by all of the storylines and characters. This is dark and disturbing, but more thrilling than scary. The writing as always if great and if there wasn’t so much going on in the beginning then this would be such a great story.