Title: THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!
Book Description:
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.
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.
My musings:
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is a prefect example of why Lisa Jewell
is one of my all-time favourite authors! It was exactly what I had been hoping
and more, and it was so deliciously dark and creepy. I must also say that I
really enjoyed the narration of the audio book version, which may have further
contributed to the suspense, since I was unable to skip parts in my curiosity
and for some time had absolutely no idea where the story was headed. I did
however spend a lot more time in my car, driving extra slowly to prolong the
experience and even sat in my driveway in the dark to listen just a little bit
longer.
The story rolls out in three separate narratives by three different
characters: Libby, Lucy and Henry. It took me quite some time to connect the
three together, and some parts of the mystery didn’t fall into place until very
late in the book, which made me form all sorts of weird and wonderful theories
– and it still managed to take me by surprise with that WTH!!!??? moment towards
the end that totally floored me.
On Libby Jones’25th birthday, she receives a
letter from her solicitor to inform her that she has inherited a large house in
a wealthy London suburb. But with the joy of sudden wealth also comes another
bombshell, because Libby finds out that she was once known as Serenity Lamb, a
ten-months old baby who was found in the house with the bodies of three adults
– both her birth parents and an unidentified adult male. The case has never
been solved.
Meanwhile, a thirty-nine year old woman called Lucy is
living rough on the streets of Southern France with her two children, playing
her fiddle to pay for food and a bed for the night. One day a message flags up
on her phone: “The baby is twenty-five.”
Henry, our third character, is recalling memories of a
carefree childhood in a large mansion in Chelsea with his socialite parents. Until
the money ran out, and the family upstairs moved in and took over their home.
So how do these characters all tie in together? What really
happened to Libby / Serenity as a baby? Who was the dead man in her parents’
home? There were so many questions, and the joy lay in the gradual unravelling
of the mystery in the clever, suspenseful way that Jewell is famous for. Each
and every character’s voice was unique and compelling, and managed to create
not only an air of mystery but a mounting tension that had me on the edge of my
seat. I also remember feeling indignation and anger at one point, as I was
becoming way too emotionally involved with the characters!
Summary:
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS was the type of clever, suspenseful and multi-layered mystery that has made Lisa Jewell an auto-buy author for me. It was one of my most anticipated new releases this year, and I was not disappointed. I loved every minute of this book, and one that has wormed its way into my psyche – I still keep thinking about it! If you love a mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end, and still manages to surprise you in a way that is not over the top crazy in the way other “killer twists” are, then you should definitely put this on your reading list right now!
You may also like:
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is the third book I have read this month that features strangers taking over someone's home. Personally, I find that very stressful, and I got quite angry at times, but if you are a fan of such unbearable tension and, like me, keep coming back for more, then you may also like these books:
No comments:
Post a Comment