| Title | : | The Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1501190105 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781501190100 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 340 |
| Publication | : | First published August 6, 2019 |
| Awards | : | Goodreads Choice Award Mystery & Thriller (2019) |
here.
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.
The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.
The Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1) Reviews
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3.25 confused, restless, is it fair enough to give lower points because you’re die-hard fan of Lisa Jewell fan question flying over my head, creepy, oh those guests should urgently get the hell out of the house stars!
Personally, honestly, I love this author’s work starting from “Watching you”, “Then she was gone”, “I found you”. She is the master evil queen of thrillers taken place in creepy houses and the characters formed in dysfunctional families who have unresolved issues.
So this book is one of them. I enjoyed the prologue. I felt all the goose-bumps on my arm, sweat dripping down my forearm, shivered uncontrollably. My intellectual appetite increased and my level of curiosity hit to the top.
Plot was intriguing: Unwanted and never-leaving guests occupied house and their numbers increased every day till they completely turned into an ominous, cursed and chilling cult, whose members wear ugly shapeless black clothes, chose organic style diet by famishing children.
And we met David and Birdie, they’re one of the creepiest couples as like Natural Born Killer’s “Mickey and Mallory”, or any adopted children of Woody Allen and him.
Those parts of the book about Henry, who is probably younger version of Dexter, undiscovered sociopath who hides his unconditional love for Phin, captured my attention. His mother who is about to lose the rest of her marbles, his passive and obedient, weak father and his sister who is suffering from puberty crisis and uncontrollable occupation of CREEPY GUESTS who became THE REAL OWNERS of the house were remarkable and well-rounded characters.
The thing I didn’t like and found confusing is way of 3 POV-ed story telling. I got the writer’s motive to put a bridge between past and future and connect three main characters’ stories, mash them in harmony. But the parts are too detailed and you started to feel like you’re drifting apart the main story, the creepy, disturbing guest part and dive into too many details about the other characters’ lives. There are so much enough materials on this book to write two other ones.
Till we reach the encounter of characters and combination part of their stories we may already solve their mystery. Being two steps ahead of the writer doesn’t make me happy!
So I wished we only read about the house’s past, rising of cult, Henry’s searching about paganism and his slow but expected move to the dark side. We already have David and Birdie to be shaken to the core.
The ending of the book was nice touch made me give extra 0.25 stars but I still expected more from this writer and as soon as I saw this book on my dashboard and screamed ( not for seeing my morning self in the mirror, for finding out NetGalley provided me the book, it was one of the happy and joyous screams) and the beginning excited me but the pacing got slower in the middle.
It was still good written, detailed, riveting book. Lisa Jewell is one of the best story tellers I’ve ever seen and as a hopeless fan, I will keep happy screaming before starting her upcoming books. But this time, this book didn’t work so much for me!
Special thanks to Atria Books and Netgalley to send me this ARC COPY and lighten up my day in exchange my honest review.
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My former publicist (she didn't die or get fired, I just changed publishers, so she's no longer my publicist) sent me an early copy of this book. I opened it up the day before book club (this wasn't the book club book) and I read it all in one sitting. That takes a long time, and The family upstairs was really captivating, so I didn't have time to read the actual book club book. When I got to book club the next night, Joy got mad at me for not reading the book club book, Ashleigh told me I'm a disgrace to book club, Holly said I've had three warnings already and, well, let's just say I'm no longer part of book club.
Which is awkward because it's held at my bookstore, so now I'm not allowed in my own place of business one Friday night a month.
But whatever. They don't know I'm still part of the book club group app, so I see what book they're reading every month and I make sure not to read it, which means I'm basically still the same member I always was, Y'ALL CAN'T CHANGE WHO I AM.
Fartknockers.
I hated book club anyway. All they do is read. -
"It all happened so slowly, yet so extraordinarily quickly, the change to our parents, to our home, to our lives after they arrived. But that first night, when Birdie appeared on our front step with two large suitcases and a cat in a wicker box, we could never have guessed the impact she would have, the other people she would bring into our lives, that it would all end the way it did.
We thought she had just come to stay for the weekend."
Gather round children, and lend an ear. If you are on the gothic psychological suspense train, and you're looking for something to read in the same vein as
Ruth Ware or
V.C. Andrews, then this is your stop.
The Family Upstairs is unsettling, atmospheric, and dare I say a tad bit taboo? 😏 I find those three traits to be the trifecta of a devilishly chilling read, and if you're like me, this needs to be on your must read list.
The reader determines quickly that the narrative is structured through three different points of view, although we aren't told how they correlate until later in the story, and this works extremely well here. I honestly don't think the story would have been quite the same if any minor tweaking had been done to the particular perspectives we are privy to, as we get just enough information into the past and present to answer all the major questions, while also allowing the reader to use their imagination to fill in some minor blanks as well. If you're the type of person who doesn't like an open-ended story, but also isn't a fan of the neat and tidy package upon conclusion, you'll appreciate what Jewell has done with this story.
I'm aware it's already been mentioned above, but I can't emphasize enough what a delight it was to read a story that felt like a modern day V.C. Andrews novel. Obviously the similarities in dysfunctional family dynamics and suffocating atmosphere of the gothic tone are clear, but there are so many minor easter eggs that felt a tribute to that unique style of storytelling. The overall vibe of this one feels much darker than Lisa's previous novels, but I think she's taken a leap of faith in good conscience and found that she writes just as well in this genre as she does in domestic suspense and women's fiction.
Yes, yes, I've kept this review vague, spoiler free, and frustratingly neutral in tone, but that's only because I'd like for you to have the chance to read this book for yourself without any influence from my thoughts. If you're a fan of the author's previous novels, you definitely need to read this. If you're new to her work, this is a GREAT piece to start with. The characters are wonderfully flawed, the story is unpredictable, and the unsettling nature of the content inside is sure to chill even the most experienced reader of psychological thrillers. Highly recommended!
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy! -
As she reaches her 25th-birthday, Libby gets to open a letter that has been held in trust for her since she was a baby.
As you can imagine, she's been anxiously awaiting the chance to read it. She believes the letter contains details about her biological family.
Found at just 10-months old, at the scene of an apparent cult-motivated suicide, Libby was taken in by the State and subsequently adopted out to a loving family.
In spite of her love for her adoptive family, she has remained curious about her early life, the details of which remain shrouded in mystery.
Upon opening the letter, she learns startling news. In addition to further information about her birth parents, she also learns she is set to inherit their old home.
Not just any home either, a long-abandoned mansion in the swanky-Chelsea neighborhood of London. The house itself is literally worth millions of pounds.
To Libby, working a mundane job designing kitchens, this is a blessed windfall.
Due to the unfortunate circumstances in which she was found at that very property, her inheritance is also cause for great trepidation. She's scared to go back.
Unbeknownst to Libby, a few other people have been waiting for her 25th-birthday as well; planning a little reunion.
Lurking around the property, they await the baby's return.
During the course of the book, we follow three different perspectives, through both past and present timelines.
I was definitely more intrigued by some sections of the book than others. This gave it a pacing issue for me. Additionally, I felt the formatting to be wonky, at best.
To be completely frank, I didn't really find it interesting until the 70% point.
Again, pacing issue. That's too much of a slow burn, even for me, to give it a higher rating.
There were entire portions at the beginning I would have preferred to skip right over.
The past timeline set in France, I was bored to tears.
However, as mentioned above, the ending really did pick up and I think overall the story premise had a lot of promise.
Unfortunately, the execution fell flat.
Even though this story wasn't necessarily for me, I know a lot of readers will love it and I fully support that.
There's a book for every Reader and a Reader for every book.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Atria Books, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity! -
Imagine inheriting an eight bedroom property in London’s SW3 - in the heart of Chelsea - it’s an area of multi million pound homes - well let’s face it, you’d be over the moon to say the least. This wonderful inheritance is Libby Jones 25th birthday present, but the house (or mansion to be precise) is pretty dilapidated, and it has a very sinister past too.
Told from the points of view of Libby, Lucy, and Henry, in both the past and present, this compelling family drama begins with the previous owners of the house. The Lamb’s are a wealthy couple with two children, Henry and Lucy. After allowing a charismatic stranger named David and his family to move into their home, their lives will be turned completely upside down, because David isn’t nearly as charming as he appears to be. He’s definitely a Svengali figure and will soon have the family under his spell, all except for Henry - he isn’t falling for David’s charms, not one little bit!
A disturbing, chilling and complex narrative results in many mysteries, as the three narrators stories begin to thread together, bringing us ever closer to the main mystery - that of what happened to the previous inhabitants of this Chelsea mansion.
* Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for my ARC for which I have given an honest unbiased review in exchange * -
3.5 stars
The Family Upstairs is a compulsively readable psychological thriller that features multiple storylines, three POV’s, an unreliable narrator, a sociopath, several mysteries, many murders, a crazy cult, a sick obsession, and much more! Needless to say, there’s a whole lot going on.
When Libby, who was adopted when she was a baby, discovers that she will inherit a mansion on her 25th birthday, she is stunned. She wants to know more about her birth parents and why she is the sole heir to a large fortune. She begins to investigate, and with the help of a reporter, she soon finds she might not want to know where she came from after all.
Henry, a child who grew up in the mansion, shares the story of his family’s riches to rags story.
Lucy, a single mom of two, living in France is homeless and desperate to put a roof over her children’s heads. When she receives a calendar reminder that the baby has turned 25, she stops at nothing to return to the home from which she fled.
I enjoyed the first ¾ of this book. It’s fast-paced, easy to read--I couldn’t put it down. I was taken in by all three narrators and was eager to find out all of their secrets. However, I reached a point when it just turned chaotic and crazy. In addition to trying to cover too much and do too much, The Family Upstairs was trying to be too many genres in one--family drama vs. mystery vs. twisted thriller, which took me out of the story and had me shaking my head. The last few pages were eye-roll worthy--I just wasn’t buying Henry’s character. In no way is this book bad, I was just expecting more in the end.
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. -
Wonderful book. Great writing craft. The story is a slow burn and told in three points of view in alternating chapters. David the antagonist is developed and revealed slowly and turns more heinous with each chapter. Henry, the son is my favorite character. Jewel does a fantastic job developing his character and putting in layer after layer of motivation for what ultimately happens. The book starts out smoldering and doesn’t really shift into high gear until page 150, then it really takes off. The thriller structure with the short chapters helps make it a fast read that is difficult to put down. The story is also told alternation in the past and present. Jewel uses present tense for the current day part of the story and does it seamlessly. If I were boxed into a corner about something critical to say it would be that there were too many characters to track. This one is a solid five star read and I highly recommend it.
David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson series. -
2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars.
This book was very confusing too me so I am just going to use the blurb as the plot. I thought it was written well.
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.
This one has a slow burn in the beginning and it was so confusing but it eventually made sense. It is told in three points of view, Libby's, Henry's and Lucy's. It also has two different timelines. There are also lots of characters in it so at times it was hard for me to keep track of all of them. When I read a book I don't like to be confused. I like to know what's going on and it takes awhile to know what's going on.
I was not expecting to not liking this one. I did enjoy some parts. I love Lisa Jewell and I loved every book she has written so this was a disappointment. I can't believe I am saying this, but this one was too dark and disturbing for me. This book was very very dark. It is not for every one. I have never read a book that was too disturbing and dark until I read this one. It has lots of triggers which I will put down all of them at the end of the review. I felt like a different author wrote this book. There were some parts that I enjoyed. I did enjoy the ending.
I still can't wait for the next Lisa Jewell book. This is the only book of hers, that was a disappointment to me. The other books I read by her, I loved so much. I am in the minority of this one so I suggest to look at all the other 4 and 5 star reviews. This one just might be the book for you. Lots of others loved this book.
Trigger warnings: If you have a trigger this book has it. Rape, child abuse, animal cruelty, suicide and incest.
Available Now
I want to thank Netgalley, Atria Books, and Lisa Jewell for the widget of this book. -
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell (Author), Tamaryn Payne (Narrator), Bea Holland (Narrator), Dominic Thorburn (Narrator)
Confusing, disturbing, creepy, and I didn't want to look away. Twenty five year old Libby Jones, adopted as a baby, finds out her real identity and that she has inherited a mansion worth millions. She also finds out that she was found with three bodies, in the almost empty mansion. With the help of an investigative reporter, Libby attempts to find out what happened to her parents and the other people who had been rumored to be living in the house, at the time of their deaths.
We have three narrators, Libby, Lucy, a 40 year old mother without a penny to her name, and a male, who is responsible for much of my confusion. At first, because everything was so hard to understand, I thought I wasn't going to like this book. But eventually things start falling into place, while at the same time, it becomes clear that things in that mansion were much worse than it seemed at first glance. The audio is excellent and it's the male that adds so much of the creepy, dangerous atmosphere although the story really doesn't need help in building up the creepiness.
Published November 5, 2019 by Simon & Schuster Audio -
Forgettable and Disappointing read that started with great promise but became bogged down with too many characters and a story that went around in circles
I started out really enjoying this book as I was intrigued by premise;
Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones receives the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with the excitement of what it contains about her past " 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 neighbourhood, worth millions. Libby's life is about to change forever.
Told from three of the characters point of view which really was quite confusing and tedious, The story dragged and became while not graphic in content, unpleasant reading and really wasn't a book I enjoyed picking up and while I finished it, I did struggle to the end.
I thought the characters were poorly fleshed out and their actions never felt convincing or believable to me. The whole story felt rather bizarre and rushed and while it had been described as "suspenseful" "atmospheric" and "haunting" it was lacking on all those elements for me.
An ok read but certainly not one I remember a year from now. -
Lisa Jewell ventures into horror infested psychological thriller territory in this disturbing and unsettling novel. 25 years ago in Chelsea, London, the police enter 16 Cheyne Walk, the mansion of the wealthy Lambs, the home of the famous Martina, wife, model and mother, with her young children, Henry and Lucy. What they discover is the dead, decomposing bodies of the Lamb parents, and that of another mystery man, with a note that suggests a cult suicide, but strangely they find a 10 month old baby alive and well cared for, Serenity Lamb, who is later to be adopted. There were rumours of other children residing at the place but no trace of them has ever been uncovered. In the present, it is Libby Jones 25th birthday, her ordinary life of working in sales of designer kitchens, living under tight financial straits in her small flat, is to be rocked when out of the blue she learns she is the sole inheritor of a large Chelsea mansion, she has become an extremely rich young woman.
When she visits the house with the solicitor, she finds it in a dilapidated condition with a creepy atmosphere as she learns of what happened there 25 years ago. She becomes more afraid when she hears the sounds of someone upstairs and leaves the place abruptly, determined to discover all she can about what happened there. Libby is aided by her work colleague, Dido, and journalist, Miller Roe whose life was destroyed by his obsession with the story. In the South of France in Nice, an impoverished single mother is living hand to mouth with her two children from different fathers, Marco and Stella. She busks as a fiddle player, worn out by the life she lives, which includes periods of homelessness but she is now keen to take her family to London. In the past, a young Henry with his strong sense of entitlement is to find his future and that of his family shockingly derailed when his mother invites a pop star, Birdie Dunlop-Evers, and David Thomsen, with his family, wife, Sally, and their children, Clemency and Phin to live in their home temporarily, only for them to end up staying permanently. Thomsen, the usurper, is authoritarian, cruel, and manipulative as he tightens his hold on the household as the lives of those who reside there descend into horror and a nightmarish hell.
Jewell writes a gripping and compulsive novel in which a menacing insanity takes hold of the lives of the children in Cheyne Walk, culminating in their broken and traumatised, emotionally damaged psyches. Libby is to find her life changed forever as she learns of the secret family histories of her newly inherited mansion. This is the most twisted and darkest of books, as revelation after revelation unfolds, which makes for an uncomfortable but never less than a compelling reading experience. Many thanks to Random House Cornerstone for an ARC. -
This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019, since I’m a huge Lisa Jewell fan. For me this book was a frustrating read. The four other novels by this author which I have previously read were favorites of mine and I never had any problems with the flow of the story. This book has so many characters, switches back and forth in time and I found the characters, with the exception of Libby, to be unpredictable and not very believable. In the beginning I actually took notes to keep the characters straight!
The blurb for this book is not very explanatory, as the family that descends upon this house doesn’t live upstairs but virtually invades the entire house, upending all of the characters lives and futures and wrecking havoc on the family living there.
The story is told from three points of view, the first we are introduced to is Libby. Libby has just turned 25, she is single and working at a company that sells kitchens to mostly wealthy clients who need her expert advice. She makes a living wage but not much more. She always knew that she had been an orphan, adopted when she was a young baby, and has been waiting for a letter to come from the solicitors in England to tell her what her family name is and a little bit about them. What she finds out instead is that she has now inherited a mansion in an upscale part of Chelsea, England, and need only come to the law offices to claim the house. Even in a run down condition she knows the house will be worth many thousands of pounds.
Henry narrates a large portion of the story. He was the son of the original family who owned the house in Chelsea. We will see many sides of Henry, the good, the sad and the unbelievable. He had to watch while his home and family were turned upside down and their lifestyle completely changed when David Thomson and his family come to stay, for a very long time!
Lucy’s point of view is interesting, she is a now single mother of two, Marco and Sally and has been living most of her life from the money she makes playing her fiddle. She is extremely down and out when we join her in the story. She gets the message on her phone “the baby is 25” just when she had no idea how she was going to continue to provide for her children. She heads to England to rejoin her siblings and the now grown baby who will inherit the family home.
This is such a confusing story with so many characters that I’m not going to get into any of the plot. Suffice it to say that it is multi-layered, hard to keep straight and hard to believe. It was only the closing chapters that really set straight what the heck was going on in the novel. For this story to have occurred it would have been necessary for the family, friends and neighbors of the Lamb family to have done nothing to try to find out what was going on in this house for 5 years. The children were taken out of school and eventually none of them were allowed to leave the house. I just kept saying to myself “come on, someone would have noticed something was up here”.
I don’t think I can recommend this book to anyone but I will continue to be a huge fan of this author, this book just wasn’t right for me. There are other 5* reviews out there so read a variety of them!
I would like to tell my readers that this book does include animal cruelty, incest, child abuse and rape.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss. The book is set to publish November 5, 2019. -
Rounded down from roughly 4.5 Stars ⭐️ This was my first book by Jewell and I cannot believe I waited so long to try one of her books!
The Family Upstairs follows Libby, a young woman who has just inherited a house. But she is not the only one who has been waiting for this to happen. Police attended the house decades previously and found 3 dead bodies and a note. Upstairs was a well-cared for baby in a crib, who was looking after the baby? Where are they now?
I have been waiting to get my thriller groove back and I finally feel like I have it again! I absolutely loved Jewell’s writing and the wonderfully short chapters which kept the pace moving nicely! Initially I was a little confused by all the different points of view and what was happening. But once things became clearer I could not put this book down! Normally I like characters that I can connect with, which didn’t happen here. What I loved about the characters in this book is that they all seemed to have flaws. Some of them were such grey characters, I couldn’t quite work them out. It’s left me completely fascinated and wanting to know more about their true motives!
My favourite thing in thrillers is an unexpected twist, and there was one twist that I just did not see coming! I’m still trying to get my mind around it now. Although I had guessed the other twists, the one I didn’t guess made up for it! I loved the dark and creepy atmosphere that Jewell created in the house. It both compelled and disgusted me. The multiple points of view added so much depth but also confusion (I am a sucker for an unreliable narrator). I am so excited to get stuck back into this storyline with the next book.
I would recommend this book to thriller fans, but please be aware that it deals with very dark topics that some people may struggle with. -
Well, it looks as though I may be in the minority on this one!
Libby is shocked after being notified she’s just inherited a massive house. One that comes with a mysterious and tragic history.
Libby was found abandoned as a baby in this home. Having been adopted, Libby has since blossomed into a 25 year old, well-adjusted, content young lady. Anxious to keep her life moving along on the timetable she’s set for herself.
Well, Miss Libby...this new inheritance thing may just change up your original life plan. Maybe there’s a great deal more to discover here than just an old house.
Told from several POV and timelines. From the start I had difficulty keeping it all straight, never coming together as much as I hoped.
I’ve been reading all of Lisa Jewels books and always look forward to their release every year, but I have to say this might be my least favorite.
But…I’m still a committed Lisa Jewell fan and anxiously await her next release!
A buddy read with Susanne!🌸
Thank you to Ariele Friedman at Atria Books via NetGalley and Lisa Jewel for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review. -
3.5 STARS
Lisa Jewell is one of my favorite authors!
I have read all of her thrillers and my expectations were so high for her newest (possibly too high). I love how she writes, builds tension, and weaves a story.
Her books are so easy to read and fall into. This one did seem a bit too long though and I was beginning to tire of the complex plot. It focuses on a highly dysfunctional family and there are a lot of characters to sort out. It took some time before I was able to make all the connections, but it played out nicely.
The family runs a cult-like home (or rather mansion) and what happens there comes into play later on....
The two timelines (past/present) will collide into a dark tale of this is what really happened....
There are surprising twists, but this one was missing the page-turning magic that I loved in her previous novels. It is still a solid and entertaining read.
This one is out August 8, 2018 -
Oh gosh I truly don’t understand the hype this book has already received. I absolutely love Lisa Jewell, I consider her one of my favorite authors; this was one of my most anticipated book releases of the year. I feel like this book was just so uninteresting and definitely my least favorite book from her yet.
This might be a “it’s not the book it’s me” situation cause everyone else seems to be loving the hell out of this, but I felt so disappointed and bored by this book. In typical Lisa Jewel fashion we follow a few different POV’s in a few different time periods. In her other books I absolutely loved that but in this one I found it so hard to keep track of who was who and what was going on. I feel like there are way too many characters to remember in this book (or maybe this is only because I read this book over a period of several days as opposed to one or two sittings like I usually would for a thriller). It takes a long time for this book to get somewhat interesting and even then I still felt like it dragged. I also feel like this book hardly feels like a thriller - it’s more of a family drama about these siblings and a single mother and this family that moves into another families house with some “thrilling” moments thrown in. I’m actually pretty surprised by the really high reviews so far, maybe I’m just missing something. Every time I picked this book back up I was only able to get through about 30-50 pages because I would get so bored and distracted, which is a bad sign cause thrillers normally read really fast for me, and if I’m not flying through the book it’s because I don’t care about the plot or characters. /:
I’m just so disappointed because I wanted to love this book because Lisa Jewell is my thriller queen, but this book just didn’t do it at all for me.
Huge thanks to Atria Books for sending me an e-ARC! -
Lisa Jewell’s books do a good job of keeping the reader off kilter, especially at the beginning. At the age of 25, Libby learns she has inherited a house. Not just any house, but a mansion in Chelsea, London worth millions of pounds. The house has been vacant for the past 24 years, ever since her parents killed themselves in a suicide pact and left her to be found. What was never determined was what happened to the other people, including her siblings, supposedly also living in the house.
The book moves along at a rapid clip. The book is told from the viewpoints of Libby, Lucy and Henry. Lucy is a mother of two young children, living in Nice and basically homeless. And we hear the backstory of the residents of the house from Henry, the teenage son . Henry is a delightfully creepy person, the kind that just gives you the shivers. In fact, you’ve got a whole cast of odd and disturbing characters.
This is one of those books I didn’t want to put down. I was anxious to see how it was all going to come together.
My thanks to netgalley and Atria Books for an advance copy of this book. -
The Family Upstairs kicks off with Libby receiving word on her 25th birthday that her birth parents have left her an abandoned mansion in a wealthy part of London. She hopes this will lead to answers about who she is and where she comes from. In a second storyline, we meet Lucy, a middle-aged mother of two struggling to get by and avoid homelessness. And in a third storyline, we follow one of the mansion's former occupants as they reminisce about what happened in there all those years ago.
Right off the bat, I found this story to be a little hard to follow. It felt somewhat chaotic, probably because we are following three separate storylines across two different time periods. For the first third of it, I had no idea where the narrative was going. It doesn't help that this is an odd story, and it only gets weirder as it goes along.
But then the story starts to crystalize, and the real fun begins. There were plenty of twists, though I wouldn't say any of them particularly surprised me. For each one, there were plenty of leadup with clues about the direction it's going, so by the time the twist shows up, there wasn't much shock factor. But it's still entertaining to follow along as the story veers from one odd development to another.
I couldn't put this story down, turning the pages as fast as I could, even though I was taken along for an odd journey that I wasn't really expecting. It really goes to show that Lisa Jewell is a consummate writer of this genre, and she knows how to deliver a compulsive read, even one whose story isn't quite to my taste. Had I known what this was about ahead of time, I'm not sure I would've picked it up, but I don't regret reading it. It entertained me and was great fun, even though it ended up being extremely strange. -
4.5 stars!
Deliciously dark, creepy and twisted!
Lisa Jewell does it again! I loved this highly suspenseful, spine-tingling tale! This author is SO extremely consistent in her writing. She has the ability to suck me into a storyline from the first chapter barely letting me up for air before the last sentence. This book was such a treat and a great escape during these stressful and isolating times.
The engrossing plot is dark and disturbing - it involves a wealthy family, an eerie old mansion house, a creepy cult and several strange and peculiar characters.
If you like edgy, dark, eerie stories filled with mysterious, foreboding atmosphere and secretive, intriguing characters, then this is the book for you! It was excellent! I absolutely cannot wait to see what this author comes out with next!!
Thank you to my lovely local library for the loan of this novel! -
My reviews can also be seen at:
https://deesradreadsandreviews.wordpr...
3.5 Stars
Another intriguing read from Lisa Jewell!
A family is forever changed when a woman, her cat, and her two large suitcases come to stay.
Libby Jones was orphaned at six months old. She is now twenty-five and has just received a letter from a solicitor. She's been expecting this letter but she's still surprised by what it says. “The house. They’ve left me the house.”
16 Cheyne Walk is a townhouse in one of London’s poshest neighborhoods. It’s been held in trust for Libby for the last 25 years. If what this letter says is true then it could change everything for Libby.
Libby’s life is definitely about to change.
Lucy and her children, Stella and Marco have no money and no place to stay. Lucy hopes she can get her fiddle back so she can start making money again. She looks at the notification from her calendar app on her phone. “The baby is 25”.
Now Lucy needs to get herself, her children, and their dog back to England. There is someone who might help them. She could contact this person or get what she needs illegally. Either way is dangerous.
If only Lucy realized just how dangerous.
Henry was named after his father who was a hard man. His mother, Martina wasn’t the best mum but she wasn’t the worst. Henry remembers the night the woman (with her suitcases and cat) came. They could never have known the impact she (and the others) would have on their lives and how it would all end.
They were only supposed to stay for the weekend!!!
What exactly happened in the house on Cheyne Walk all those years ago?
I thought this was an interesting read. Lisa Jewell's stories always pull me in right away and this novel was no different. But after the intriguing start, I did have a hard time staying focused. But because it was an LJ book, I kept reading.
The story alternates between past and present. We hear from quite a few characters. With so many characters and individual storylines, there is a lot going on. Most of the storylines were intriguing, though I liked some more than others. I'm not sure how I felt about the ending. While some character's stories felt complete, others left me with some unanswered questions. Overall, this was still a good read. I'm glad I stuck with it.
A story about heritage, control, family, secrets, lies, and more!
I'd like to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel. All opinions are my own. -
3 Stars.
Creepy and Disturbing. Par for the Course with Lisa Jewell, Right?!
The Past: Houseguests. They are never pleasant. Unless they are temporary. For a family living in a mansion in Chelsea, a ringing of the doorbell signals a whole host of changes that influences their entire lives, forever. Call it dark, eerie and downright strange.
The Present: On Libby Jones’ twenty-fifth birthday, she inherits a house. Not just any house, a mansion in Chelsea. Though dilapidated and vacant, it is a total windfall for someone like Libby who has always lived paycheck to paycheck. When she visits her new “home” she discovers something frightening and begins digging into its history. What she finds is unlike anything she ever imagined.
Lisa Jewell’s “The Family Upstairs” is a novel told in different timelines, containing lots of characters to keep track of. Once you get going, the storyline flows and you become enmeshed in the mystery of the mansion and the ominous feeling of the story. While this wasn’t my favorite of Ms. Jewell’s novels simply because I felt like it was lacking something, it was a super quick read, which I tore through in a just a few hours.
Another buddy read with Kaceey!
Thank you to NetGalley, Ariele Friedman at Atria and Lisa Jewell for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Published on NetGalley and Goodreads on 6.10.19.
Will be published on Amazon on 10.29.19. -
Really closer to 4.5 and it's all so Flowers In The Attic-like isn't it? With the poisonings and locked up children.
I ADORE Lisa Jewell's writing. Her books are unique and she's a bit quirky. At one point a character is described as being "vaguely petrified" which, really, makes no sense. It's an impossible state, but she made it seem reasonable in context.
The pace of this book is on the slower side, but consistently propelling, then becomes full blown crazy and emotional at around 70%! -
***NOW AVAILABLE***
This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019, since I’m a huge Lisa Jewell fan. For me this book was a frustrating read. The four other novels by this author were favorites of mine and I never had any problems with the flow of the story. This book has so many characters, switches back and forth in time and I found the characters, with the exception of Libby, to be unpredictable and not very believable. In the beginning I actually took notes to keep the characters straight!
The blurb for this book is not very explanatory, as the family that descends upon this house doesn’t live upstairs but virtually invades the entire house, upending all of the characters lives and futures and wrecking havoc on the family living there.
The story is told from three points of view, the first we are introduced to is Libby. Libby has just turned 25, she is single and working at a company that sells kitchens to mostly wealthy clients who need her expert advice. She makes a living wage but not much more. She always knew that she had been an orphan, adopted when she was a young baby, and has been waiting for a letter to come from the solicitors in England to tell her what her family name is and a little bit about them. What she finds out instead is that she has now inherited a mansion in an upscale part of Chelsea, England, and need only come to the law offices to claim the house. Even in a run down condition she knows the house will be worth many thousands of pounds.
Henry narrates a large portion of the story. He was the son of the original family who owned the house in Chelsea. We will see many sides of Henry, the good, the sad and the unbelievable. He had to watch while his home and family were turned upside down and their lifestyle completely changed when David Thomson and his family come to stay, for a very long time!
Lucy’s point of view is interesting, she is a now single mother of two, Marco and Sally and has been living most of her life from the money she makes playing her fiddle. She is extremely down and out when we join her in the story. She gets the message on her phone “the baby is 25” just when she had no idea how she was going to continue to provide for her children. She heads to England to rejoin her siblings and the now grown baby who will inherit the family home.
This is such a confusing story with so many characters that I’m not going to get into any of the plot. Suffice it to say that it is multi-layered, hard to keep straight and hard to believe. It was only the closing chapters that really set straight what the heck was going on in the novel. For this story to have occurred it would have been necessary for the family, friends and neighbors of the Lamb family to have done nothing to try to find out what was going on in this house for 5 years. The children were taken out of school and eventually none of them were allowed to leave the house. I just kept saying to myself “come on, someone would have noticed something was up here”.
I don’t think I can recommend this book to anyone but I will continue to be a huge fan of this author, this book just wasn’t right for me. There are other 5* reviews out there so read a variety of them!
I would like to tell my readers that this book does include incest, child abuse and rape.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss. The book is set to publish November 5, 2019. -
After seeing some mixed reviews for The Family Upstairs, I was a little worried one of my favorite authors has turned to the dark side in more ways than one. I am so glad I decided to give this a try for myself because I had nothing to worry about. Lisa Jewell continues to do no wrong with this devoted reader.
Lisa Jewell is moving a little towards the darker side from what this "Lisa Jewell reader" has come to expect. However, I have moved a little ok a lot to the darker side myself, so I think she and I still make a great match. She still has all those significant elements that make for her signature suspenseful style with those well-layered unpredictable plots and reveals and twist that come just at the right time to figure some things out.
The Family Upstairs is a compelling family saga with devilishly, deliciously chilling narrative along with disturbing dark characters. I enjoyed the three POVs along with the different timelines that had me questioning the reliability of some characters. The last few pages are so chilling and I loved every one of them. I was left feeling delightfully chilled to the bone with how it all came together. I highly recommend.
I received a copy from the publisher on NetGalley -
4 & 1/2 stars
My favourite Lisa Jewell so far!
This was soo good! Told from three POV, each story felt like it’s own, with each chapter giving just enough to have you hooked. I loved seeing how they intertwined as I got deeper into the story!
What I didn’t like what about this book was two of the main characters being called Lucy and Libby. 🤦🏻♀️ whyyyy did they have to be so similar! Not going to lie I struggled with it throughout the whole book 😂
I was feeling a little unsure on Lisa’s books after not enjoying the first one I read, but I am definitely all for it now -
4 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What a disturbing, dark, suspenseful and atmospheric story! Lisa Jewell has done it again with the The Family Upstairs. A very unique tale about family history and all of its secrets.
Although I’m a big fan of Jewell’s books, I was hesitant to read this after seeing so many of my friends’ mixed reviews. I didn’t know what to expect, so I kept an open mind. I’m so glad I did!
The three POVs in the book really made it awesome for me. Between that and the short chapters, I found myself having a hard time putting this book down. I just had to know how these character’s chapters came together in the end. I loved each of their stories and found them quite fascinating.
If you love Lisa Jewell or just love a good family mystery, this book is for you. There are no shocking twists, but lots of good stuff here.
Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books and Lisa Jewell for my advanced copy to read and review. -
Dark, twisty, and creepy, I devoured Lisa Jewell's new book in the matter of a few hours.
Libby is about to turn 25. She’s thinking about finding the right man, taking the next step in her career, making her limited amount of savings last. Adopted at a young age, she always knew she’d be getting some sort of inheritance from her birth parents on her 25th birthday but figured it might be something small and sentimental, if even that.
She’s shocked to discover she’s inherited a house—no, a once-grand mansion. More than that, she’s shocked to find what appears to be the truth about what happened to her parents, that they were part of some mysterious suicide ritual and she was found in the house by police. No one was ever able to figure out exactly what caused her parents to kill themselves, and where the rest of the people living in the house went.
Meanwhile, a woman who has been down on her luck for quite a while, living on the streets with her children, depending upon the kindness of strangers and playing her fiddle for money, gets a text message that says, "The baby is 25." What is behind this text that motivates her to put a plan in motion to get her and her family to London?
In a third narration, a boy some 20 years earlier watches his family and his life fall apart with the arrival of strange visitors who bring many bizarre changes to the household, and they leave utter chaos in their wake. They also awaken a range of emotions in the boy.
These three narratives combine as Libby, with the help of a reporter, tries to come to terms with her tragic history, and figure out what happened the night her parents died. She truly can't fathom that she's inherited such a large house, and she also could have sworn that someone was in the house one night when she was looking around. But who could it be?
I’m being mostly vague with my plot summary because while not everything was surprising to me, Jewell throws in lots of twists and turns, and it's much better to let the plot unfold at your speed. I thought the book started really slowly and toyed with putting it down, but once I got a little bit further in it picked up steam and then I couldn’t put it down.
I like when a book is told in multiple perspectives but there are a lot of characters to keep straight. More than a few times I had to stop and remember which character was which. But in the end, The Family Upstairs is a creepy yet altogether believable story that would make an interesting and compelling movie, and Jewell is a skilled storyteller.
See all of my reviews at
itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.
You can follow me on Instagram at
https://www.instagram.com/the.bookishworld.of.yrralh/. -
Chelsea, London - Then: a young boy recounts how his world was turned upside down when 'strangers' entered his life when they came to stay with his family. Now - 25 years later in St. Albans, Libby, an upmarket kitchen salesperson, is shocked to find out that at 25, she has inherited that self same house in Chelsea; and in France, a mother and her two young children find themselves homeless, and the mother realises that the only way out may be to return to London. Three stories told concurrently, each full of mystery and suspense, especially as, us readers only know what each protagonist reveals at any given moment, although we know one thing for sure - that all the trouble stared with the family upstairs!
Although a mass bestseller, I should mention Trigger warnings for both child and domestic abuse. Wow, is all I can say. I have got on very late to the
Lisa Jewell bandwagon, and unlike so many other bestselling writers, Jewel's work yet again hits the sweet spot for me, with a story I couldn't put down and such well worked characters across all three concurrent stories. The strap line over the book blurb tells you all you need to know "be careful who you let in..." So that's it, my first finished read of 2022 comes in with a Four Star 9 out of 12!
2022 read -
When Libby turns 25, she receives a letter she’s been waiting for her whole life — to learn the identity of her birth parents. She also find out she has inherited a mansion in London. The abandoned house is in rough condition and has a disturbing past: 3 people died there several years ago in what appeared to be a suicide pact when Libby was only a baby.
Who were her parents, really, and who was the other adult? Who saved Libby from the awful events downstairs? She works with Miller, a journalist, who covered the story back in the 90s to try to identify more information about her family and their apparent secrets.
The story is told from 3 perspectives: Libby, trying to obtain answers, Lucy, a musician in France trying to get back to London to deal with her past, and Henry, in the past, revealing the depth of a disturbing household — Cult beliefs, seemingly permanent houseguests, infidelity, and more take place. Together, their perspectives weave into a mysterious story.
The Family Upstairs is my second Lisa Jewell book and I enjoyed it. It started out somewhat slow and I wondered if I would stay interested — Fortunately, I did, and while I guessed a few elements of the story correctly, others surprised me. -
‘The Family Upstairs’ and three dead bodies downstairs and a well-cared for ten-month-old baby in a cot in the bedroom is the setting and opening of this latest thriller from Lisa Jewell.
A story told in dual timelines, and in the present day, twenty-five-year-old Libby receives word of an inheritance that will change her life. She is the sole beneficiary of an abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable and affluent neighbourhood of Chelsea, worth millions, and the rest. And this is where the past meets the present with revelations of obsession, neglect, a dark cult, and an ambitious plan to take possession of another life.
A dark and menacing plot, an immersive and captivating read, and characters that are well drawn but believability? Well that is where this book fell short. A baby left unattended? an abandoned mansion in Chelsea well that just would not happen in this wealthy neighbourhood? children that manage to stay off the radar from social services? and people who succeed in stealing their way into someone’s life and take possession of their home and their life? – well this is all a bit too contrived and implausible.
Disappointing yes, because I have not hesitated to give any of the other Lisa Jewell books, I have read five stars. Of course, the other ingredients are there and the writing style and suspense is what you come to expect from Lisa Jewell. However, I really struggled with the credibility of this fictional story, and even though I would like to give this four stars I have to compare with other four-star books and conclude that this one does not come up to that level. So it has to be a 3.
