The Family Upstairs by LISA JEWELL

THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS

ATRIA BOOKS

5TH NOVEMBER 2019

LISA JEWELL

SYNOPSIS:

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.

THOUGHTS/REVIEW:

This is my first Lisa Jewell book and I am definitely a fan of her writing. She brilliantly creates the perfect amount of thrill, chill, suspense, and that eerie atmosphere that will keep you glued to this book and ignoring everything else going on in your life. I had this book with me wherever I went. The book is brilliantly written and told in multiple POVs that will have you immersed in the story and the suspenseful drama that is slowly revealing itself.

The story follows Libby Jones who at the age of 25 inherits an abandoned multi-million dollar mansion in the coveted Chelsea neighborhood around the Thames area in London. She is bound to learn the truth about herself and the family that she came from. What she may not be ready for is learning who she really is and the macabre murder/suicide scene where she was left in, when she was only an infant, untouched.

I love how the story slowly unfolds while learning about Lucy and Henry’s history and current living situation. Their life gets turned around as their mother allows these new friends to take advantage of her and her family – slowly infiltrating their home and disrupting their once lovely family and life. It is quite the story with some surprises that caught me in the end that makes for a very entertaining and fantastic read for me.

I highly recommend this book for those who want a wonderful domestic thriller and suspense read that is every bit chilling and disturbing. This is my first Lisa Jewell book and I am definitely a fan of her writing. She brilliantly creates the perfect amount of thrill, chill, suspense, and that eerie atmosphere that will keep you glued to this book and ignoring everything else going on in your life. I had this book with me wherever I went. The book is brilliantly written and told in multiple POVs that will have you immersed in the story and the suspenseful drama that is slowly revealing itself. 

The story follows Libby Jones who at the age of 25 inherits an abandoned multi-million dollar mansion in the coveted Chelsea neighborhood around the Thames area in London. She is bound to learn the truth about herself and the family that she came from. What she may not be ready for is learning who she really is and the macabre murder/suicide scene where she was left in, when she was only an infant, untouched. 

I love how the story slowly unfolds while learning about Lucy and Henry’s history and current living situation. Their life gets turned around as their mother allows these new friends to take advantage of her and her family – slowly infiltrating their home and disrupting their once lovely family and life. It is quite the story with some surprises that caught me in the end that makes for a very entertaining and fantastic read for me.

I highly recommend this book for those who want a wonderful domestic thriller and suspense read that is every bit chilling and disturbing.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

Lisa was born in London in 1968. Her mother was a secretary and her father was a textile agent and she was brought up in the northernmost reaches of London with her two younger sisters. She was educated at a Catholic girls’ Grammar school in Finchley. After leaving school at sixteen she spent two years at Barnet College doing an arts foundation course and then two years at Epsom School of Art & Design studying Fashion Illustration and Communication.

She worked for the fashion chain Warehouse for three years as a PR assistant and then for Thomas Pink, the Jermyn Street shirt company for four years as a receptionist and PA. She started her first novel, Ralph’s Party, for a bet in 1996. She finished it in 1997 and it was published by Penguin books in May 1998. It went on to become the best-selling debut novel of that year.

She has since written a further nine novels, as is currently at work on her eleventh.

She now lives in an innermost part of north London with her husband Jascha, an IT consultant, her daughters, Amelie and Evie and her silver tabbies, Jack and Milly.


Lisa's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/LisaJewelloff...