The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
Simon & Schuster
pub November 2019
library loan
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.
I borrowed this book from the library as for some reason I did not meet the criteria to receive an eGalley from NetGalley from Simon and Schuster pre-publication. It must be because I am not one of those gushy 'oh quote me for a blurb please' type of bloggers, so screw you all, I am still reviewing this damn book! Just to throw it in your face for declining my request to review this on netgalley I really want to say I hated this book but I can't, for Lisa Jewell is very good at what she does. She is a wonderful gothic-esque suspense writer and The Family Upstairs is a solid four star read, so take that Simon and Schuster morons who didn't want me to review this book. 😘
I really loved Libby's character and learning her family's secrets slowly.. the suspense/mystery angle was well played out and I didn't exactly know all the connections of the characters though there was certainly an aura that something more was happening under the covers. I really loved the way the plot filled itself out as it was indeed like one more cover lifted, then another till we reach the end. There were several ways the whole thing could've played out and the ultimate finale was very well done and satisfied my need for closure with a twist.
The other Lisa Jewell book I read was Then She Was Gone, which was a five star read. Check that out here on Goodreads. I think I will be looking for more Lisa Jewell reads as Ruth Ware has totally made me ban her because of her lame ways of closing out her own suspense/thrillers.
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