The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell



READ THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE: Suspense, Thrillers, Sequels

Where are my fellow suspense and thriller lovers? You are going to really enjoy Lisa’s newest book, The Family Remains a sequel to the incredible book, The Family Upstairs. It had been so long since I read The Family Upstairs that I totally forgot the plot and characters, you might want to revisit this book before reading The Family Remains. Or maybe you have a good memory and will remember everything! Either way, The Family Remains is a fantastic suspense!

This can be read as a stand-alone book, don’t worry if you haven’t read the previous novel.

SYNOPSIS:

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

Coming on August 9

I really enjoyed this follow-up to The Family Upstairs! The first book was tied up pretty nicely so I wasn't expecting a sequel and felt wary before reading. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the continued stories of the characters and I enjoyed the pace of the multiple perspectives.

Another strong mystery/thriller from Lisa Jewell! The domestic story lines are most convincing, in my opinion, and her characters are infuriatingly good. Like her other novels, these books could be 50-100 pages shorter and be just as good. But overall, another enticing and twisty novel to add to your TBR for the fall.

Lisa Jewel's stories are simply the best! A satisfying sequel to 'The Family Upstairs'! Delighted to reconnect with these characters. I would say it's also great as a stand-alone as she covers the necessary backstory.

The Family Remains is the sequel I didn’t know I needed.

It picks up where The Family Upstairs ended.

Detective Samuel Owusu finds a bag of bones floating in the Thames River. Forensic testing reveals that the bones are connected to a decades-old cold case that left three dead in a Chelsea mansion.

The narrative follows new and old characters as they reconnect with each other and as they discover shocking new connections.

This is slated as a standalone sequel, but if I hadn’t read The Family Upstairs before this, I’m not sure I would have been as invested in the plot or its characters.

It’s been a few years since I read the first book, so I skimmed it to help refresh my memory. But, it turns out that was unnecessary because the author seamlessly summarizes it in the first few chapters.

The chapters themselves are short, making this a very bingeable read. It follows multiple POVs and timelines.

There were a few twists, some predictable, some surprising. I loved reading Rachel’s chapters; she really rounded out the story.

I definitely recommend giving this a read if you’ve read The Family Upstairs. You might get a better feel for the characters that way.

CW: SA, suicide.

Thank you to Atria Books for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://booksandwheels.com

While I was excited to dive back in to the secrets of the Lamb family, I was not riveted by this book. I felt that the first book tied up all the ends nicely. As this book was partly told by Daniel's perspective it was a different voice which helped to differentiate the two books. Lisa Jewell as always brings her readers into the lives of the characters. It took me a while to get in to this one, but the last quarter of the book really picked up.

Family Remains the long awaited sequel will draw you in slowly but oh so surely.

A body is discovered along the shore of the Thames which leads the police back to the Chelsea mansion from The Family Upstairs.

There is a mystery within a mystery: who killed Birdie and where is Phin

Lucy, Libby and Henry while searching for Phin (they all have their own reasons) are hiding something from thirty years ago but what.

Then there is Rachel and her oh so nasty husband who turns up murdered.

What is the connection.

The tension mounts and the pace picks up.

The pages fly by as the light stays on to the final page.

Lisa Jewell is a born story teller that never lets you down..

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for another great read by Lisa Jewell; one I wont soon forget.

I've read a few books by Lisa Jewell and she's clearly a very talented author. She has a way of writing thrillers/mysteries that really suck you in.

I read this one without having read A Family Upstairs. I actually think that worked in my favor? I had no idea what was going on and found myself wholely invested in these characters and seeing how everything would play out. Each character has a very unique voice which is no easy achievement. I'm really interested in reading the first book now having read this one.

The Family Remains by @lisajewelluk is a very intricate psychological thriller! Even though it’s a sequel to The Family Upstairs, I was able to get into the story and enjoy it as a stand along book.

The story revolves around Lamb family, Henry, Lucy and Libby on how they overcome hardships In life and how they are dealing with some heavy dark secrets and abuse endured during their childhood.

Thank you @simonandschuster @simon.audio and @netgalley for the complimentary finished copy, audiobook and digital galley!

I highly highly recommend this book, it’s a fantastic intense fast paced read that will have you engrossed throughout! The book publishes on August 9, 2022!!

Lisa Jewell is the Queen of twisty psychological thrillers for me. I read the Family upstairs and I hardly remember the details. Mostly I remember thinking wow, that's f*d up. That is to say this book needs not to be read in succession. It gives enough background. This book switches between different povs and different timelines. I had to reread a few chapters to get the characters straight. This book left me really thinking about what I read.

I dd read the previous book, but it was some time ago and I had forgotten the names and the plot.
Maybe that is why really did not enjoy this book. I found the storyline confusing and there were so many characters with alias names.
A murder had been committed some time previously and now each person needs to exam their past for different reasons and return to their childhood locations.
I thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This sequel picks up where Jewell’s The Family Upstairs left off and continues the stories of the main characters still alive (and one who was murdered), as well as introducing some new players. The plot is too intricate to try to quickly summarize. Suffice it to say that fans of the first book will enjoy learning more about the survivors and their offspring from that house of horrors in Chelsea thirty years ago.
While it will help if you have read The Family Upstairs, I think this one can work as a standalone.

Written in dual timelines and from a few points of view, it took a while to draw me in. Well written, with colorful characters, the plot is a bit over the top, but it was eventually an engrossing, enjoyable, sometimes dark, read.

Thanks to @netgalley and @atriabooks for the ARC

Sheesh! This was a sequel. I couldn't imagine how this was going to compare to the first and man this kept me guessing the whole time. I love how the lives got intertwined - I love when writers keep you guessing. Can't say I'm ever really disappointed in LJ's books. And oh that Henry...sheesh.

Lisa Jewell returns from (2019) The Family Upstairs with the highly anticipated follow-up sequel, THE FAMILY REMAINS; two siblings continue to deal with the fallout of their traumatic childhoods.

This installment will provide the answers to the madness long ago. Jewell returns to the voice of Henry and the reunion with Phin (an enigma), among other burning questions. Henry takes center stage.

The quest for resolution and answers regarding events from decades prior. Juggling three different storylines—a lot is going on and to keep up with.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. The main focus is creepy Henry Lamb. After being reunited, Lucy Lamb lives with her brother, Henry, and wants to reconnect with her oldest daughter, Libby.

Lucy once married to Michael (Rachel Rimmer); and Lucy’s daughter, Libby Jones, whose escape from their childhood “house of horrors” was the focus of the previous book.

Henry’s obsessive search for Finn worries Lucy, who tracks Henry to Chicago, while Libby is intent on finding her biological father.

Libby locates her birth father, Phin Thomsen, who lived as a teenager with Lucy and Henry—all their parents were part of a cult led by Phin’s father and died together in a suicide pact.

They also found traces of Phin living in Botswana and planned a family reunion. But Lucy discovers he has hit the road as soon as he found out their intention. He cuts off all communication, prompting deep concern in Lucy, who knows of Henry’s dangerous obsession with Phin.

In the meantime, human remains have been found in the Thames and traced to the childhood home Libby inherited. They then are questioned by the police.

Jewell dives deep into the dark psyche of Henry Lamb, which is by far the most broken of the bunch. In addition, Rachel's story will keep you captivated by this suspenseful family drama and its twenty-year-old mystery with multiple twisty subplots.

A tragic tale of child abuse, emotional trauma, toxic families, deadly obsessions, blackmail, and murder—the lengths to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.

When I think of Henry, I think of Joe Goldberg in YOU.

Jewell does a great job with the wrapup and a master at designing complex characters and situations with a satisfying epilogue.

A must-read for anyone who enjoyed the first book and would recommend reading The Family Upstairs prior —to enhance your overall reading experience. Once again, Jewell is a master storyteller and a favorite author. Looking forward to seeing what comes next!

Thank you to #AtriaBooks and #NetGalley for an ARC to read, review, and enjoy.

Blog Review Posted @
www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pub Date: Aug 9, 2022
Aug 2022 Must-Read Books

I frist started reading Lisa Jewell last year with The Family Upstairs and am happy to have had the opportunity to continue the experience with its sequel The Family Remains. Part of the fun of reading this novel, and it's predecessor, is following the seemingly unrelated storylines and seeing how the all come together. This novel sure did deliver in that regard!

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell comes an intricate and affecting novel about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this standalone sequel to the “brilliantly chilling” (Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author) The Family Upstairs.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller, The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth."

The pacing of the novel is on point and had me furiously turning pages, or rather swiping left of my Kindle, as it raced toward the end. And what an end we were given! WOW. Very satisfying ending and novel overall. The novel is billed as a "standalone sequel" to The Family Upstairs and you certainly don't have to read it to enjoy The Family Remains. However, having the first hand knowledge of events from TFU that we were reminded of in this novel helps to unhance the overall reading experience of TFR.

Stand out character was Henry giving even more Talented Mr. Ripley vibes this time around. His awkwardness was palpable and he was given some of the more poignant inner monologue moments when talking about his loneliness

Overall OUTSTANDING. Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for my first ever advanced reader copy.

This book was slotted as a standalone sequel and I could not disagree more.
I read (and very much enjoyed) The Family Upstairs so I was so excited to read this book, but it was even confusing for me.

At first I thought maybe too much time had passed and I couldn’t fully remember everyone’s storyline but I was almost halfway through the book before anything really felt like it was falling in place.

I think it took too long for this story to grasp its own footing for me to enjoy, and I couldn’t imagine trying to read this without reading The Family Upstairs first.

Overall, writing was still good and I never like fully bashing a story that takes so much effort. I would give it 3 stars. It’s right in the middle for me, I would only recommend it to people who have read the first one and to completely ignore the “standalone sequel” descriptor.

Have you ever wanted to love a book so much that you refuse to put it down until it gets good? That’s this book, except it never got good.

This is a standalone sequel to Lisa Jewel’s The Family Upstairs however throughout the entire first half of the book I continuously felt lost since it has been over a year since I read The Family Upstairs. I had to constantly remind myself who the characters were and how they were connected.

The second d half of this book picked up but I felt like the character dialogue was forced and unauthentic.

Sorry Lisa, this one lost me.

This book is the sequel to the well received and enjoyable The Family Upstairs. Having read the previous book, I still struggled to place certain details from that book that I felt was necessary to be able to thoroughly connect. A review of book #1 is certainly needed. Even with that said, Jewell continues to deliver with mystery storytelling with connections in unimaginable ways providing closure to the original story. Be warn, the mystery unravels slowly but the book is also about the characters lives unfolding from the original story. There are bones discovered as the story begins and a dead body ...which we are then thrusted to the beginning of that storyline concerning Rachel and Michael. I highly recommend reading to reconnect with the children from the Family Upstairs but I also recommend having read that book as well to thoroughly enjoy this one. 4 stars. Thank you Netgallery

First, I disagree that this could be a stand alone. But I didn't reread book one before diving in, which was fine, because the writer reminds you of everything that happened throughout the book. There are a couple different timelines, different points of view, and more than one story being told. Henry has an interesting way of seeing things, so his was either the most entertaining or slightly disturbing. The end surprised me in a nice way, and I did realize I was glad to have more of their story. I do wish there had been more new suspense or weirdness. But I suppose the kids who grew up in that house deserve peace. And I enjoyed the ride.

Told in Jewell’s unique style of winding storytelling, The Family Remains brings us some characters from The Family Upstairs and some new ones. Rachel has been married on almost a whim. But her new marriage isn’t going the way she envisioned. Meanwhile, all these years later, Henry and Lucy are looking for Phin. And the authorities are on the hunt for them. It’s almost a game of cat and mouse as we watch these stories intersect.

I’m always excited to read a new Lisa Jewell book. I love her storytelling style that splits the story into varying timelines and narratives. When we left Henry in the first book, he had done something fairly sketchy to someone he cared about. Is Henry still the same person as when he was a teenager? I love the way we explore the changes in the characters through time. I agree with this being called a standalone sequel, as Jewell weaves in enough of the narrative that you needn’t have read book 1 to understand what is going on. But it certainly helps expand on the storyline. Overall, this is a fun and addicting read. Thank you, Atria Books, for sending this along.