This is an excellent psychological thriller from Lisa Jewell. A little confusing at first with the different characters, but persevere, it's worth it!
The twisted family lives, and the sense of dread surrounding the family interlopers all add up to a great read. I demolished this in two days flat, and although I've already read a couple of Lisa's books, I now want to read more.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance ARC of this book.

4.5 stars!

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

After reading Lisa Jewels previous novel I knew I had to pick up more of her work and I was not disappointed! Although it was a little slow to start, once I was pulled into it I couldn’t put it down. Jewell expertly wove the three POVs together until they all meshed at the end.

You could feel the insidious atmosphere in the house grow as you got further and further into the novel, I was on tenterhooks waiting for the story to come full circle so we could finally find out how things got to where the were in the present day. There were plenty of moments that kept you on your toes guessing how everything was going to end and even though certain things were still left hanging it felt like a completely satisfying conclusion and left you with plenty to think about.

I’d absolutely recommend picking this up and will definitely be picking up more of Lisa Jewell’s work in the future!

Absolutely brilliant. I love Lisa Jewell's book but I think this book takes her journey into crime fiction to another level. For fans of Tana French and Erin Kelly, it's well written, extremely well plotted and genuinely eerie. Highly recommended.

I am a huge fan of Lisa Jewell and was so excited to receive a copy of The Family Upstairs to review. Henry and Lucy Lamb live in a beautiful house in Chelsea with their socialite parents. All is well until their mother invites strangers into their home, and as the newcomers slowly take over, all their lives are changed beyond comprehension.

Fast forward to Libby Jones who receives a letter on her 25th birthday informing her she has inherited a large house in Chelsea. The same house that was the scene of a believed suicide pact involving adult members of a cult. 25 years ago.

The book is another page turner from Lisa Jewell and as usual contains interesting and believable characters alongside a gripping narrative. A great summer read.

Another great read from this author. Once the characters are in your head the story flows beautifully. Lots of twists and turns and you really feel for the characters in the book. A great read. Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced read.

Libby Jones was six months old when she became an orphan, now at twenty, she’s astounded to find out about an inheritance that will change her life. A massive townhouse in one of London’s poshest neighbourhoods has been held in trust for her all of these years.
Libby wants to know what happened to her birth parents and the story behind the house and as she starts to investigate, people from the past come back to try and protect secrets of their own. What really went on in that rambling Chelsea mansion when they were all children?

Another fantastic book by Lisa Jewell, lots of characters at the beginning but then it comes together pretty quick and you can’t stop reading! Excellent characters and a super storyline which builds up tension all the way through. Definitely recommended!!

Thanks go to Netgalley and Penguin Random House UK for an arc copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. Lisa Jewell’s thriller books are just that and I couldn’t put this one down.
The beginning started off a bit patchy, with lots of threads and I wasn’t sure who was narrating each thread, but once I got into it, the story really flowed.
The Lambs have 2 children, Henry and Lucy and they all live in a big house in Chelsea. One day they start inviting people into their home which has devastating consequences. The story is told from three different points of view which brings the story together nicely. It’s a highly recommended read

The thing I like about Lisa Jewell, is that you never know quite what to expect from her next book; she creates something a bit different each time, and what a great portrayal of an entirely dysfunctional family in her latest, 'The Family Upstairs.'
Apparently from out of the blue, a single young woman inherits a valuable residence in Chelsea. Having grown up with her adoptive parents as an only child, Libby is about to discover a whole new other life; extended family as a sister, a daughter and a grand daughter; and the story of 'The Family Upstairs,' a cult-like existence based on lies, corruption and imprisonment.
Told from different perspectives and dipping back and forth through time, 'The Family Upstairs,' is an enthralling read.

This is the story of a fragmented family like no other. A girl on her birthday receives a solicitors letter advising her of an inheritance which throws everything she knew and did not know about her past into doubt. Questions surface that no one can answer. Over the channel in the Côte d'Azur a single parent, living not on the breadline but in the gutter opens a message on her phone reminding her it is baby's birthday. We are then taken twenty five years into the past when two families from very different spectrums of society collided. Over the following five years we the reader are intrinsically linked with the damaging and catastrophic events happening to their young children. Some adults look on, some take an active part but no one is blameless as this story unfolds. The birthday is the catalyst that carries this absorbing story to its final conclusion. As we are made aware of the tragedy that unfolded so many years ago it is difficult to know how anyone in the schools or outside community could have been unaware or oblivious to events and the neglect occurring. A more interesting dilemma was how the author could bring this saga to a conclusion tying up so many unanswered questions all waiting and needing to be resolved. Three dimensional characters all guilty of crimes, albeit with the best of intentions who have struggled to get to a point where their story can be heard and understood by our innocent protagonist, the missing baby and link in this mystery. On the day she becomes owner of the house of secrets events move along a slow trajectory until we are made, finally, aware of what those secrets were. A really satisfying and enjoyable read.

As children, siblings Henry and Lucy Lamb were living quite a normal but privileged life until two strangers move into their home. After that everything changed culminating in the deaths of 3 people. Back in the present day Libby receives a letter saying she has inherited 16 Cheyne Walk. Libby is very interested to find out what exactly happened in the house which resulted in the 3 deaths many years ago.

I really enjoyed this book. The subject matter was quite different from what I normally read. Not all of the characters were likeable. I really enjoyed both timelines and it kept me gripped all of the way through.

I have really grown to love Lisa Jewell's book and love the suspense and twist and turns that she can create from her books ... Every one of her books is a page-turner and this won't disappoint.

The characters were great and loved the plot, my only niggle was that I did get a little confused at times whom I was reading about as the books tend to jump from person to person. But otherwise, the book was a really good read and I can't wait for the next book once again thank you so much for letting me read this book early it's a great summer read!

I started reading The Family Upstairs knowing little about the story. I’d chose it solely because I’ve enjoyed Lisa Jewell books in the past and I wasn’t disappointed - in fact this is probably my favourite of her thrillers.

The story starts when ‘Libby’ inherits a house. Libby knows little about her birth parents, other than they died when she was a baby and she was found along with their bodies, rescued and adopted. It’s not until she gets the keys to the house she was found in that the gripping and intriguing story of her family unfolds.

I enjoyed the different POVs in the book and the split timeline was easy to follow and added to the suspense. I thought the pacing was fantastic and the way the story unfolded was perfect.

Highly recommended!

This is an interesting thriller. To my mind, it begins a little more slowly than the cover/blurb suggests but persevere and let it tempt you in...

25-year-old Libby receives an unusual inheritance - the huge house in Chelsea that she was abandoned in as a baby, her parents found dead in a suicide pact as she was gurgling happily in a cot, her older siblings missing.

As she explores the house, its histories and mystery, we also see the viewpoints of Henry and Lucy - the two siblings who grew up there, then disappeared.

Henry and Lucy had a perfectly normal(ish) family when they were very small children, until some strangers came to stay and slowly, slowly, cleverly, carefully, took over the entire household and turned things very dark indeed. David Thomsen, one of the guests who came to stay, has a strange pull over their mother - and many of the other adults who end up floating in and out of the building. Soon they are all eschewing their worldly goods, the kids' education, and even their shoes, all so they can be 'free' from the evils of modern society.

This all leads up, inevitably, inexorably, to that day Libby is found as a baby. It's an interesting and creepy look at how cults or obsessions begin and how they can take a person too far. Then there's the question of what happens next, and what the older siblings might do once Libby is back in that house in Chelsea?

It took me a little while to get into this, and Libby didn't work for me as well as the other characters, but this is overall a gripping read.

She looked at her phone: The baby is 25.

I’ve never read a Lisa Jewell novel before. My best friend used to devour them in college but I always assumed they were very chick-lit, which wasn’t me. However, when I came across the synopsis for The Family Upstairs, I knew I couldn’t turn it down.

3 long dead adults, seemingly a suicide pact. 4 children missing. And a 10 month old baby in her cot upstairs, well fed and cared for. What starts with questions drip feeds answers interspersed with more mystery as the story builds, told from the viewpoint of two of the missing children, and the now adult ‘baby’; through both flashbacks and present day discoveries.

Jewell has crafted a fabulous story of mystery that sucks the reader in with just enough clues to make you think you’ve worked it out before the next bit of information knocks you off your feet. And what a twist! If you are after a story that is both an effortless read and a black hole in which you can’t escape until you’ve finished, then this is the one for you!

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

The story is told by three people.

The novel is introduced by Henry Lamb, who thirty years earlier, when he was eleven, and his sister, Lucy nine, had seen a family of increasingly-sinister people with cult-like characteristics move into his family's mansion-like house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and effectively take it over with the apparent acquiescence of Henry’s wealthy parents, Henry and Martina Lamb.

The novel then moves thirty years on to the story of Libby Jones, the second narrator. Libby’s story is told alongside Henry's. Libby, adopted as a child, had been living in a modest flat in the ‘backwaters of St Albans’ when she turned 25. A month after her birthday, she learns that she’s inherited a magnificent house in Chelsea. Yes, Henry’s family's house!

Years before, Libby had been told that her birth parents had died in a car crash. When she goes to the solicitors to discuss the inheritance they’d written to her about, she learns that her mother and father had died in a suicide pact, that their teenage children had been missing at the time the bodies of her parents’ had been discovered, and that a ten-month old baby had been found alive in the house, and a screwed-up note.

Finding it hard to believe that she’d inherited a house that was worth so much, Libby sought out a reporter, Miller, who, suspicious that the parents’ deaths were not suicide at all, and anxious to trace the missing teenagers, had written an article some years before detailing the events as far as they were known. He and Libby struck up a friendship and together they decided to probe further.

The third story is that of Henry’s sister, Lucy, who, virtually destitute and reduced to sleeping under bridges with her young son, is trying to get back to England. However, leaving France without any money and without a passport isn’t easy, and Lucy is forced along paths she’d rather not have had to take.

While I enjoyed the novel, and thought that Lisa Jewell had a real gift for capturing the essence of a person in a few descriptive details, and for building an atmosphere that was both creepy and exciting, I found it difficult to remember who the different characters were – there were a lot of them – and to remember to whom they were related! The story being told through different perspectives, and in first and third person, and set at different times and in different places, added to my confusion and uncertainty about who belonged to whom, and at times I found it hard to know who was actually talking.

I should also have liked some of the characters to have been better developed. The father and mother are so sketchily drawn that I lacked any real understanding of them, and found it difficult to accept that they’d have so blindly allowed ‘the family upstairs’ to take hold of their lives, their house and their wealth in such a way, and that they would have been so disregarding of the interests of their children. Why they allowed this to happen is never truly explained. At most, there’s a superficial, clichéed explanation as to why the mother did nothing to halt the destructive progress of the invaders.

Lisa Jewell always writes a good book, and her books are always worth reading. Perhaps, though, this isn’t quite as good as the last few books of hers that I’ve read.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Random House UK, Cornerstone, for an advance review copy.

Here's the thing. @lisajewelluk #TheFamilyUpstairs is creepy and menacing and tense. With layers of secrets and twists and turns. And is brilliant. Proper page turning. Proper thrilling. Loved it! Big fat 5* from me!

Another diamond from Lisa Jewell. I couldn’t put it down. So many twists and turns and links which you know are going to happen, but it’s just a case of when. I’d love to read a follow up book to this as I want to know what happens to two of the characters next – eeeeeek!

Enjoyed this book and the characters,some intriguing twists and turns on the way, quite a page turner and interesting end.

I’m a big fan of Lisa Jewell, but this book is not up to her usual standard. I found the format very messy and complex juggling between three people in third or first person and in different eras and locations. Half the time I didn’t know who was whom or who was speaking. For me, the first part of the story needs a lot of attention. There were too many characters thrown into the mix too quickly before I could ascertain their measure or relate to them. The plot and the thinly defined characters didn’t arrest my attention. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK.

This story follows the strands of three people until they finally merge to complete the picture. And it's not what you expect.

On turnfing 25, adopted Libby receives an inheritance from her birth parents that leaves her staggered. A dilapidated mansion in a fashionable and expensive area of London. But what is the story behind the legacy?

I really engaged with Libby and also Lucy, the two main characters. Trollope lives up to her usual great standard in this story.