The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell is my favorite book to date by this author. Libby turns 25 and inherits a huge family home from her birth parents. At the same time, Libby begins digging deeper into her origin story to learn what really led to her parents' death and her subsequent adoption as a baby. Libby learns that her siblings, ling thought dead, might still be alive and she goes to great lengths to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the first year of her life. Told through multiple narratives and time periods, this novel zooms along quickly and is an excellent story. Read and enjoy!

Thank you to Atria for the free review copy. All opinions are my own.

This is the third novel by Jewell that I have read, and it was, by far, my favorite one I've read. I was engrossed right away. The three narrators really worked for me. I liked getting a glimpse of how the characters got to where they were through Henry's POV and then trying to figure out how Lucy and Libby were connected kept my attention throughout the novel. I also enjoyed the cultish vibes of this story. It just worked for me.

The thing that I find that I enjoy from all of the books that I've read of hers is how her stories are so believable and the writing flows so well together. She has cliffhanger in all the right places, characters that are engaging, and twists that work and don't feel forced.

The only place that I felt lacked was in the ending. I wasn't a fan of part four of the book and don't quite get the ending intentions. I also had figured out most of the twists by the end, and wasn't shocked by the one that I didn't see coming.

When Libby Jones turns 25 years old, she finally gets to open a letter she has been waiting for her whole life, for it contains the identification of her birth parents. Found at just 10-months old, at the scene of an apparent suicide pact, Libby was adopted out, never knowing her true identity.
Upon opening the letter she learns some startling news. Not just who her parents were but that she is inheriting their long-abandoned mansion in the swanky-Chelsea neighborhood in London; a house worth millions of pounds. To Libby, working a mundane job designing kitchens, this is a blessed windfall. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances in which she was found at that very property, her windfall is also steeped in trepidation and fear.
Unknown to Libby, she really may have reason to be fearful, for others out there have been waiting for her 25th birthday as well, and they are planning a reunion. Lurking around the property, they await the baby's return.
During the course of the book, we follow three different perspectives and both present and past timelines. I was definitely more intrigued by some sections of this book as opposed to others. This gave it a pacing issue for me personally and I felt the formatting was a bit wonky.
To be completely frank, I didn't really find it interesting until about the 70% point and then I couldn't put it down. Again, pacing issue. Unfortunately, that's too much of a slow burn, even for me, the lover of slow burns, to give it a higher star rating.
There were entire portions at the beginning that I would have preferred to skip right over. Let's say, anything set in France, I was bored to tears.
However, as mentioned above, the ending really did pick up and I think over all the story premise had a lot of promise, and for these reasons I bumped my rating up from around a 2.5 to a 3. This is a good book. I know a lot of readers will absolutely love it and I support that. It just wasn't necessarily the perfect book for me.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Atria Books, and to NetGalley, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity!

When I open a book by Lisa Jewell I know that I'm in for a rewarding reading experience. "The Family Upstairs" was an engrossing psychological thriller.

The first chapters of the book were a tad confusing as there were a lot of different characters introduced - some of them going by more than one name. Once I got the characters straight in my head it was pure enjoyment from then on.

The events that took place in that Chelsea mansion were disturbing and unforgettable. All the more memorable because it was so plausible. You hear about such happenings in the news.

Told via dual timelines, and from three perspectives, the story came alive. Libby, Lucy, and Henry each add a viewpoint that fully rounds out the narrative. Lucy's story was particularly poignant.

The characters were well drawn and some of them were quite chilling. There was a pervading sense of menace emanating from the David Thomsen character. The descriptions of the house, and what went on there, were vivid so as to make the reader transported to the scene.

And the ending, well it was very satisfying, though as with many thrillers, I found myself with goosebumps after the final line...

Highly recommended to all those who enjoy an expertly crafted psychological thriller. Lisa Jewell never disappoints.

Another thriller from Lisa Jewell. Had me guessing to the end, read it in one sitting as I couldn’t wait to finish it. Definitely a book to recommend to our readers.

3.5 STARS

This book took me sooooooo long to read. I went in expecting a "twisty thriller", but it was definitely more of a slow burn mystery/suspense novel. I kept waiting for something major to happen but it never did. It took me a while to get into it, and when I was reading it in short spurts I never really felt the urge to pick it back up. However, it picked up around 30-35% and I couldn't stop binge reading the rest of it.

I feel my trouble with this book is that I never really connected with any of the main narrators. I was halfway through and couldn't even immediately recall any of their names. I did finish the book really enjoying Lucy's story, but that's about it. I also felt that the author was attempting to make the house its own character, much like Manderley in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, but it fell flat for me.

There was a super minor romance subplot that I was super majorly annoyed with. I wish it had just been dropped completely. I was a little disappointed that the "cult" aspect didn't really end up having a lot to do with the plot, in a way.

I have a lot of feelings about the character of Henry, but it will tread into spoiler territory so this is your SPOILER WARNING: I am just so perplexed by his character. The second-person point of view writing style was so strange, with the other narrators being in third-person. He kept addressing "Serenity" so I expected a reveal that he was writing some sort of letter to her, but nope. Just inexplicable. He was such a disturbed kid, but who could blame him with all the trauma and abuse he endured? I did guess right away that "Phin" would end up being Henry. I think it's weird as fuck that everything is all hunky-dory at the end, even after he locked Libby in a room... stole her phone... put a tracking device on it. No big deal, apparently??? I understood the author wanting to end on a cliffhanger, but like, I wish there had been more time spent on the reveal that everything Henry did was because of Phin, because I thought it was so twisted and sociopathic. I wanted that aspect explored more, rather than just expanding on his obsession when he was younger.

So overall, not quite my cup of tea, but I still enjoyed it. Just be sure to go in expecting more of a slow burn than an intense thriller!

Though I devoured this book in 3 days, on the whole it was very ... complicated. There were SO many characters, SO many plots, SO many time periods of pasts and presents, that I just found myself losing the thread and feeling the plot a bit fraught. The further I read, the more anxious I was when I thought of keeping the book unfinished and when I thought of picking it up again. I like a good mystery, but I hate feeling really anxious about the book and the people. This "first" family, with David and the Lambs was NUTS, and they were such awful people! And then Lucy, with her homeless self, 2 young kids, a dog, and a monstrous ex-husband who is a whole other set of crazy, was just a lot.

We'll see, but this might be my last Jewell book, if she keeps the anxiety train going! Also, I have zero fingernails left.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Cults. They both terrify me and fascinate me at the same time. Lisa Jewell delivers a doozy of a novel with this one! So many twists and turns throughout the story keeps the reader rapidly turning the pages, trying to get to the bottom of what is going on. She keeps the chapters short, which makes me feel like I am tearing through the book! I love it!
Libby turns 25 and quickly learns that her birth parents left her a house in the most expensive part of London! However, what Libby doesn’t know is all the baggage and history that comes along with this home.....including a cult suicide pact that took the lives of her parents and what is believed to be the Cult leader. There were also others living in the house... but what is odd is there is no trace of them anywhere. Will Libby figure out what the heck went on behind these closed door? The pacing that Jewell provides for this story is perfectly balanced with the characters and their development. I greatly appreciated her attention to detail. If you like psychological thrillers mixed in with family drama and a dash of cult like vibes... then this story is for you!!! I guarantee you will plow through this one!!

Thank you to #Netgalley and #AtriaPublishing for the opportunity to read and review #TheFamilyUpstairs, by Lisa Jewell. All opinions are that of my own and are offered freely.

Whew! My head is absolutely spinning. What a twisted read. So many dark characters, so much evil. The secrets, the turn of events, and the interwoven story lines grab you and take you on a confusing ride of disturbing, cult like, circumstance.

I loved the variety of characters, both good and bad. The continual and rapid introduction of bizarre characters kept my interest from the very start. Don't think too hard, you will never figure it out! No one is as they seem, or even who they may claim to be. Creating an excess of confusion, using names that rhyme, names that change, and names that have slight variations, being old and unordinary, and even nicknames, thoroughly overloads the mind. The use of then/now and foggy memories of generations gone by, keeps one on their toes. It is the difficulty in the read that makes it so enjoyable and thought provoking.

Lisa Jewell sets the bar high with all of her previous gems. This one is right up there in her usual fashion. I highly recommend and hope many will take the challenge and give this dark thriller a read.

I had heard The Family Upstairs was a highly anticipated book for 2019.
Myself, I found it a bit confusing and hard to follow all the different time periods and characters.
It is a psychological thriller and a bit on the creepy side. I will admit, I just think this wasn't a book for me. I became bored halfway through just couldn't finish it. I really wanted to like it.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

I enjoyed this Lisa Jewel significantly better than her last book. In what I'm coming to realize is her particular writing style, the first half of the book was slow. I enjoyed the different perspectives from Libby and Lucy in the present and the boy in the past. About halfway through the book things really started to pick up and I enjoyed it even more.

At first the ending to this book had me thinking "huh? but what about..." and believing the end ignored certain aspects about a character that needed to be explored. However, the very last line was great. It is one of those open-ended endings that is just a little unsatisfying yet completely perfect. I'm glad I gave this author another chance.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I DEVOURED this book!

Like when the chapter ended in a cliffhanger, I actually got mad because I wanted to know what happened. #justonemorechapter

Lisa Jewell’s previous novel ‘Then She was Gone’ was just okay for me (and actually really sad), but this one I LOVED.

It centers around the Lamb family, their eccentric visitors/roommates, a dual timeline (technically triple), secrets, horrors and a million dollar house in one of London’s best areas.

All during the reading of this book, I kept thinking ‘why!?!?’ Then it was pretty much explained in the following paragraphs and I felt satisfied.

If that doesn’t spell suspense then I don’t know what does.

I had several theories- some panned out almost exactly how I thought it would, others were so off the mark its laughable.

This is DEFINITELY a twisted family drama. Like seriously dark and twisted doesn’t cover it.

Yes, it’s a domestic drama and that almost put me off because to me domestic drama=spousal abuse and I’m a little tired of that.

Dare I say that it wasn’t really a thriller? Super suspenseful, but not a thriller.

Short review: a twisted and dark domestic suspense novel!

The Family Upstairs was eerie, creepy, and twisty. If you enjoy thrillers with different timelines and narrators, this book is for you. For the most part, I enjoyed the plot but felt it moved a little slow at times. Still a book worth reading!

Another great psychological thriller from Lisa Jewell! I appreciated the twists in this book, and enjoyed seeing likeable characters, which is rare in a thriller.

Super compulsive read that you definitely find hard to put down! The Family Upstairs was my first Lisa Jewell novel and it certainly won't be my last. I loved the varying perspectives between the characters and was so eager to get to where the stories converge.

I am a huge fan of Lisa Jewell novels and The Family Upstairs might be my favorite of hers thus far. I was so excited to be invited to read this eARC that I jumped up and down.

This book holds plenty of surprises and twists that left my mouth gaping. It was quite disturbing and.definitely cringeworthy. It’s told from three POVs: Henry telling the story of what happened while the kids were growing up in the house, Libby (aka “the baby”) in the present learning more about who she is and where she came from, and Lucy trying to get back to London and see “the baby” in present day. It was a well-crafted story as Lisa Jewell always gives us. I feel like I can’t say much without giving twists away. It was just a good, creepy book, and I really didn’t want to go to work until I finished it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for sending me an advanced digital copy!

The story is narrated from multiple perspectives and alternating timelines. In the present, Libby Jones turns 25 and learns she has inherited the mansion in which her parents were found dead when she was an infant. Also in the present, we are given the viewpoint of Lucy, a homeless woman with two children, living in France. When she realizes that Baby has turned 25, she decides she must return to London. The final narrator is Henry who explains the past - what happened in the mansion when people moved in with his family.

On the plus side, the book is a quick read. The short chapters make it easy for the reader to put down the book and later pick up the narrative.

On the negative side, there is very little suspense. There is mystery, a lot of unanswered questions, but an experienced reader will have no great difficulty figuring out what happened and who is who. For me, the first real instance of suspense occurs in Chapter 39, well past the midway point of the book. Obviously, I didn’t read the same book as the many people who have described the book as twisty.

What is annoying is the purposely vague narration. Why does Lucy refer to the child found in the mansion as Baby? Lucy of all people would know the child’s name. Why does Lucy say “her name is fake” when it’s not? Henry is obviously an unreliable narrator but his constant withholding of information becomes annoying after a while. Even the title is misleading because though people do move into the mansion, they do not live separately from the household. If they did, the plot would not develop as it does.

A major element that is missing is an explanation for Henry’s parents allowing six people to move into their home and take over their lives. Because we do not have the perspective of the parents, I found their behaviour difficult to accept. Can people be so naïve and blind? A teenaged boy understands what is happening but adults don’t?

There is much that is unrealistic. For years, people cannot be found and then they are all easily found? How inept can police investigators be? At least four deaths are never thoroughly investigated. The ending is somewhat unbelievable and rather gimmicky.

The book is entertaining, but it’s not a thriller. The mysteries unravel predictably and too conveniently.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

3.5 stars

Lisa Jewell has become one of those authors that I automatically read, without reading the blurb. I've found that her books don't ever seem to disappoint. The Family Upstairs was no exception.

This one starts off slightly confusing. After a few chapters, you'll start to put things together. It has 3 different POV's. Two are current and one is told from the past. I do need to say that although this is marketed as a thriller, it has less 'thriller' qualities than her previous novels. It almost feels like a family drama... until you get to the last quarter of the book. The story moves along at a slower pace, which did make it harder to get into the story. The entire premise of the book is odd and slightly creepy and the ending doesn't have a huge bang. At first, I felt slightly disappointed by the ending. But the more I thought about it, the more unsettling and disturbing it all felt.

There are quite a few parts that you'll be able to piece together. I find that Lisa gives you parts of the plot, without showing her hand. You'll need to take everyone's POV into account to get the full picture and you'll still need to rely on your own imagination. The ending is somewhat open, which adds to just how disturbing this one is.

“It would be inaccurate to say that my childhood was normal before they came. It was far from normal, but it felt normal because it was all I’d known. It’s only now, with decades of hindsight, that I can see how odd it was.”

The Family Upstairs is the second Lisa Jewell book I’ve read, and it’s definitely my favorite. On her 25th birthday, Libby receives a letter revealing not only the identity of her birth parents, but also the fact that she has inherited their entire estate - an abandoned mansion worth millions. Upon visiting the home for the first time, Libby begins to unravel the dark truths surrounding her birth family and the past that still haunts them.

This book was super eerie and dark. I was completely drawn in to this story from the very beginning and didn’t want to put it down. There were a few twists along the way that were perfectly timed and that I didn’t see coming. Definitely recommend this atmospheric psychological thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I have read all of Lisa Jewell's other books and I she has knocked it out of the park again. Each book is better than the last book. It is hard to put it down once you start reading it but one has to sleep, at least a little.

There are a lot of characters so it takes a little bit to get used to the names and have an understanding on just who is who. Once you have that figured out, there are so many twists and turns, and so many unexpected plot developments that keeps the reader on their toes. Just about the time that the reader thinks they have it figured out, she throws a monkey wrench into the middle of it and you go back to square one and start figuring again.

I love books about families and family relationships and this one does not disappoint. The characters are well developed and at the same time seem so flawed and at times unlikeable.

I so enjoyed this book as can't wait for the next one from the author. Bravo!!