So much evil and horror happened in The Family Upstairs a follow up was definitely warranted. While The Family Remains is technically not a "sequel-" it can be read and understood as a "stand alone," you'll have a much better appreciation of what drives the characters (especially Henry) if you know what happened in The Family Upstairs. The Family Remains offers a unusual experience-you won't like (m)any of these people (again, definitely Henry), but you'll feel for them and want the closure they desperately seek. And that's what The Family Remains is all about- the search for resolution and answers regarding events from decades prior. Lisa Jewell has crafted a story that's broody, moody, and intense. It grips you early on and doesn't let go. Thankfully The Family Remains is a quick read-while you want to linger in its pages you'll race ahead to learn Phin's fate, and what really happened at 16 Cheyne Walk. The Family Remains is both domestic drama and murder mystery-each plot line is riveting. If you haven't read The Family Upstairs the time is now-then immerse yourself in what remains.

THE FAMILY REMAINS is book two in this series. Book one is THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS. THE FAMILY REMAINS takes the timeline to when Lucy and Henry are now adults. They have now inherited money and Lucy finds her daughter Libby she had when she was just thirteen with Phin. Henry has always been obsessed with Phin and is now searching for him. There are some new characters added, Michael and Rachel, and their story was very interesting. The remains of a girl from 25 years ago is found in the Thames and Detective Samuel Owusu is on the case to find out what really happened to her and what happened in that house so many years ago.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I would highly recommend reading book one first. I read it so long ago I was a bit confused and did not remember all the characters. There are many characters and some name changes so read this book slowly and carefully, so you do not miss any details. I do recommend this book and was happy to buddy read it with my friend Natasa (@itsallaboutbooksandmacarons).

Many Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

I did just read The Family Upstairs first before reading the sequel. I liked this book more, but it might have been the continuation of the character development. Lisa Jewel hit a home run with this novel. I liked the two different timelines and how the stories once again came together. I am just one of the few that loved the ending. To me it was a the perfect ending to the book.

I hadn't read the first book but was able to follow this pretty well. It was very interesting overall, though a minor complaint, each chapter I started I had no idea who was speaking until somewhere in the first page, names on the chapters would have made this much easier to follow. This is the story of what happened to children who were abused growing up and lost their family due to suicide. It is also the overlapping story of a police detective working on a cold case and the story of a woman who gets out of an abusive marriage. Very well written and unusual. 4.5

The Family Remains is the sequel to Jewell's the Family Upstairs. This book was full of twists and turns that kept me guessing (and confused at times). All-in-all, it was a delightful continuation of the story of the Lamb family. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This was my first book by this author. Once I saw this was a sequel, I should have read the first book, even though this can be read as a stand alone novel. I put this one down and wasn't going to finish, but I gave it another try. I didn't love it, but I wanted
to see where it ended up.

By the end, I had the gist of the characters’ history, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the other one as well. Normally I would summarize the plot, but there is a lot to this one. My favorite subplot was Rachel’s. She had met and married Michael. He did not turn out to be what she first thought. He was linked to a main character who Rachel eventually met, although I found it hard to keep track of the timelines. Henry was definitely creepy. I wasn’t surprised by him in the end.

A good book keeps you reading, so even though I didn’t really love this one, I know it is a good one and well written because it made me come back to it. There were a lot of moving parts and the author pulled that off.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for this book! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

4.5 stars
Perfect sequel to The Family Upstairs. There wasn't much that I didn't love about it. We got some backstory filled in, some loose ends tidied up, some satisfying revenge, some new friendships/alliances...ahhh. So great!

I'm not really seeing where a Book 3 would go in this series, but I can be hopeful that Lisa Jewell will make it happen.

Note: I definitely recommend reading The Family Upstairs before this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an Advanced Reader's Copy. I loved it!

Ah, what an interesting read! Lisa Jewell has such a mesmerizing way of writing. I enjoyed discovering “Where are they now?” Of the characters from The Family Upstairs. A lot of questions were answered, but a lot of questions were also created. Like where the heck did Michael come from? Why is Finn such an illusion throughout the book? What happened to Justin? And what was the point of the cops? Anyway, I liked the book very much, but did not love it because of the gaps and the way the point of view changed so often. It is a strange story, to be sure. The ending makes me wonder…

4.5 stars. I was SO EXCITED when I found out that Lisa Jewell was going to write a sequel to the Family Upstairs. Although she said in her author's note that she is "very much not a writer who likes to write sequels," I am so glad she did. Note: you should absolutely read The Family Upstairs before starting this book.

This book brought so much nostalgia for one of my favorite Jewell books, the Family Upstairs. Although I relistened to it this summer in preparation, Lisa did a great job of refreshing the reader on salient details when necessary, without giving a whole repetitive recap. (as some sequels do) This was so close to being a 5 star read for me; however, I found the reunion at the end to be a little underwhelming. I do think it was important for it to wrap up the series, but I wanted something a bit more sinister. That said, she left us with a great epilogue... I really enjoyed the Rachel backstory and every moment with Henry. The investigation was also a great addition to revisiting the dark events at 16 Cheyne Walk. Overall, a solid sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and honestly rate and review this ARC of The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell.

My book club read The Family Upstairs when it was first published and we had one stronnnnnnng opinion that we needed to see what happened next! So thank you, Ms. Jewell, so much for writing this book!

All of our characters are back and we get some new ones, too. I did not reread The Family Upstairs before I read this book, and I seemed to be able to get along just fine. I really appreciated the character list and descriptions in the beginning of the story because it was such a wonderful refresher.

This book centers around finding a mysterious body in the Thames which has connections back to Chelsea…and also the search for Phineas who was last known in Botswana. The children Libby, Henry, and Lucy still have lots of secrets they would like to remain hidden…but what happens when they are threatened to come to light? Will Libby meet Phineas, her bio dad, or will Henry beat her to the punch with his obsession “…I AM PHIN…”

Excellent, excellent read. Absolutley delighted and did not see the twists coming ! Thank you, again, for this sequel!

This was the satisfying sequel that I didn't know I needed. I read The Family Upstairs and enjoyed it, even if the content was a bit dark and creepy. Yet, this was a satisfying end to the poor children in that first book. Lisa Jewell is such a great writer.

First of all, it confuses me that this is marketed as a stand-alone novel. You will not understand most of this novel if you have not read the first book. And moreover I just highly recommend reading THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS in general.

Personally, I had no problems with how the first book ended. I thought it was creepy, mysterious and pretty perfect. Jewell tries to refresh the reader on the plot of the first book but it took away from the suspense aspect of the book since we already knew how events would play out (and who was guilty of the crimes in this one).

The sequel focuses on the former teenage occupants of 16 Cheyne Walk and how they deal with the aftermath of the events that occurred there. This did wrap up some loose ends in the first book but for me it was missing the crazy twists and creepy atmosphere that I love so much in THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS.

All in all, I don’t think I needed to read this one. I still would read literally anything Lisa Jewell writes though.

Lisa Jewell is an auto buy author for me so I was very excited to be selected to read The Family Remains early.

I really enjoyed the three stories woven together of this family. It's an interesting mystery/thriller, for my own tastes I wish it had been a bit faster paced but the story was good and drew you in. I kept wanting more!

This was a great continuation of the story from The Family Upstairs. It's said that you do not need to read The Family Upstairs prior to this one but I think it would be very helpful. I hadn't read the first one since it came out and was a bit confused at the beginning but as it went a long it all came together.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this advanced copy.

I've been a fan of Lisa Jewell for a few years now, but the book that sealed her status as an auto-read author for me was The Family Upstairs, so when I found out she was releasing a sequel, I had to get my hands on it as soon as possible. The Family Remains picks up four years after the events of The Family Upstairs when human remains wash up on the shore of the Thames. As DCI Samuel Owusu investigates, it becomes clear that the victim is related to the unsolved case of the three dead adults and the abandoned baby found in a Chelsea townhouse 30 years earlier.

Henry Lamb has spent years searching for Phin, the boy he was obsessed with as a child and hasn't seen since the events at the Chelsea townhouse.. When Henry gets a lead as to Phin's whereabouts, he takes off without warning. Meanwhile, the police have started asking questions, and Henry's sister Lucy is desperate to find him before they do.

Woven throughout these storylines is a third mystery - Rachel Rimmer's husband Michael has been murdered at his house in France. What happened to him and how is it related to the other threads of this story?

I admit that I was a little skeptical about how a sequel to a thriller would work. But the Family Upstairs left plenty of unanswered questions. I'm not sure that I liked this quite as much as the first book, but it was a lot of fun and I sped through it.

My only negative observation was that there were a few moments where the writer drew attention to DCI Owusu's race in a way that seemed intentional, and yet didn't seem to serve a purpose other than to make sure we knew there was a black character. It's not that I think there needs to be a reason to mention a character's race. For example, at one point he goes to question someone at their house and makes the observation that, "the people around here probably aren't used to seeing a person of color in their neighborhood." But there's no discussion about it or context to it. Like, does he feel uncomfortable there because of that? Does it change his perception of the person he's interviewing? Does he feel like he is treated differently once people know he is a detective? To me it was like, Why mention something like that if it isn't something you're going to comment on? I felt like the only reason it was being mentioned was to win diversity points.

If you liked The Family Upstairs, I think you'll like this one! Although the mysteries in this book stand alone, I would still recommend reading them in order for more context.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me a early copy of The Family Remains.
So.... I should have re-read The Family Upstairs before reading this one because there was a lot to try to remember when it came to reading The Family Remains and had to go back to the first book to remember things. I always enjoy Lisa's books though so I still really enjoyed this one even though I was confused at first. You get a lot of POV's in this one with multiple characters. I think I enjoyed Henry's character this most though out of this one just because how unique and different and bizarre he was! But yes, if you are going to read this one, I highly recommend re-reading the first book before diving into this one.

If you had asked me a week ago if The Family Upstairs required a sequel I probably would have said no- but my mind has definitely been changed after reading it! This book continues from where The Family Upstairs concluded and reveals more of the past as things play out in the present.

I found the first half to be quite slow and it took me a while to get into. I definitely had to refresh my memory on the plot of The Family Upstairs too! The second half more than made up for it though. It was classic Lisa Jewell with lots of twists and turns.

This was so enjoyable and I highly recommend if you enjoyed The Family Upstairs!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced reading copy in return for my honest review!

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A group of children raised in a house of horrors have to come to grips with the reality of their childhood once a body is found.

When I started reading this I forgot it was a sequel to The Family Upstairs. That being said, I would call this a standalone sequel as enough of the story is explained that you can easily read it without reading the first book.

I enjoyed learning more about this very curious family and their bizarre dynamic. The deepening of the story gives us even more feels, but also wraps the story up enough that this could finish it...but also might not!. Another great one from Lisa Jewell.

This is the perfect sequel to Lisa Jewell's The Family Upstairs. I didn't even realize there was that much more of the story to tell, but I'm glad the author did.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I love Lisa Jewel’s books and was excited to see a sequel to The Family Upstairs. I really enjoyed this book.