The Family Upstairs


Another fantastic novel by Lisa Jewell full of suspense, twists and excitement! This book had me gripped from the very beginning and had me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire novel. Lisa Jewell does a brilliant job of telling the story through 3 different viewpoints and I found myself invested in each of them equally.

I was intrigued by the premise of this novel - 3 adults lie dead in the kitchen of a big house in Chelsea, while a healthy baby is in her cot upstairs. She's been cared for and had her nappy changed much more recently than the deaths of the people downstairs. So how has this all happened and who has been looking after the baby?

The novel is told from lots of different perspectives, gradually revealing the story of what took place in the house. One of the perspectives is the baby, now 25 and inheriting the house that has been held in trust for her. As she starts to investigate what happened, different figures from the past emerge and lots of stories about her family start to come together.

I'll admit that this wasn't quite what I thought I was going to read - I expected a simple whodunit, but it's far more complex than that. I did find myself caught up in it and read it quickly, even though I found some of the subject matter a bit distasteful and darker than my usual preferences. Still, it's well written and interesting and definitely worth a read.

Set in the south of France and Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, this novel explores the impact on four children of the megalomaniac sociopath with whom they live. David Thomsen does not only chip away at their self-esteem until they believe they are helpless; he also ensures that no other grown-up is able to intervene. His final grand gesture appears to be to persuade all of the adults in the house to join him in a suicide pact.
Twenty-five years after this notorious event, the youngest child of the sect, a baby known as Serenity at the time of the deaths, and now named Libby, living contently as a kitchen planner in St Albans, is informed that she has inherited a huge house in Chelsea, the house in which she was born. Little does she know that her unknown relations are very much aware of this. All roads lead to London and, as the story unfolds back and forth between the current day and the 1990s, the reader begins to appreciate the destruction wrought on all these lives.
Lisa Jewell’s prose is eminently readable even though she often focuses on traumatic events. The reader is soon swept along as Jewell weaves together different strands of this narrative and it is very easy to picture the settings, the characters’ features and, sometimes, their emotions. Nevertheless, whilst this tale explores many disturbing events, there are moments when life-changing factors are glossed over rather than explored. This superficial treatment distracts from the overall impact of the tale: outcomes from some of the really significant issues are little more than plot twists. Lisa Jewell can write popular fiction which gives serious topics the respect they deserve, as seen in her depiction of the young people in her previous novel, ‘Watching You’. ‘The Family Upstairs’ is not so successful in this respect.
My thanks to NetGalley and Century, Penguin Random House UK for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This is an unusual context for a novel with interesting characters. It is also well written with several different strand brought together to a satisfying conclusion. However,it goes back and forward in time without that being signalled to the reader. Parts of it use " I" without it aleays being clear who that is. It jumps too in time as well as in location which can be confusing. There are also many characters,some with distractingly similar names. This is a book with considerable potential. It needs extensive editing with more reader signposts.

What can I say another fantastic book by Lisa Jewell. I read this in one sitting. I am not going to give a synopsis just suffice to say if you can read it it is one of the best books so far this year. 10 /10.

Do not start this book until you have a good block of time to read it- it's impossible to put down! I read it late into the night and when I fell asleep reading it, it haunted my dreams until I woke up and finished it.

Lisa Jewell is a fantastic storyteller and this book is an exciting and gripping tale of a family like no other. The blurb itself intrigued me- who was looking after the baby and who were the adults? I was keen to start reading and unravel the mystery but there are so many twists and turns that I was kept guessing until the end.

The characters are likeable, realistic and well rounded. I found Lucy particularly interesting and her emotional journey was a difficult read in places. The whole book was cleverly woven together and scarily believable.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly and urge you to read it as soon as you can- you really won't regret it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for my copy of The Family Upstairs. I know I'll be reading it again!

Uncannily good and totally gripping. One that will remain in your mind long after you have finished it. A page turner that keeps you guessing right until the end. Likeable characters with just a touch of bad, and bad characters with just a hint of redemption. And pure evil, taking advantage of the weak and impressionable. Lisa Jewell is a first rate storyteller and I highly recommend this book.

My thanks to Random House UK, Lisa Jewell and NetGalley for my ARC of The Family Upstairs.
Oh my goodness! If you want to read this one make sure you put aside enough time to read it in one go because you won't want to put it down. It's such a unique story with so many twists and turns that you just can't stop reading.
I love stories about old houses and THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS didn't disappoint.
In a Chelsea mansion are three dead bodies dressed in black tunics, and upstairs in a beautiful cot bought from Harrods is a baby girl. There is a scribbled note left next to the body of a woman, asking whoever finds the baby to take care of her. She is well-fed and has been cared for. So how has she come to be alone and what happened to the people downstairs?
Libby receives a letter from a solicitor informing her she is the sole beneficiary in a will.
Lucy lives in poverty in France with her children, Marco and Stella. All Lucy wants is to get back to London.
Henry is a computer whizz who has made a fortune in the industry. He deliberately rents an apartment where he can see into a house in Chelsea.
Clemency lives in Cornwall but has never stopped thinking about her brother Phinn whom she last saw when she was fourteen.
A once beautiful house and it's dark and horrific secrets connects them all. But how? One of my favourite reads so far this year.

I absolutely love Lisa Jewell and this book did not disappoint.
The story is told from three different view points with many twists along the way. It brings together events from 1990 alongside the present day and shows the relationships of three families living in one house. It describes the manipulation from a strong character and how this leads to the destruction of normal healthy people.
This book made the reader feel very uncomfortable at times with some dark story lines. However the ending felt very satisfactory and enabled me to understand the complex relationships between strangers sharing a house.
A great story line which I did not want to end

Wow !!! Well this certainly grabbed me from the start as I just kept reading and reading desperate to find out just what happened in the once beautiful house in Chelsea and who would leave a baby and why? There were so many questions in this story and told from multiple points of view and timelines it became a truly compulsive read. Dead bodies, stories of a cult, abandoned baby, creepy house, weird behaviour so what more can you ask for in a mystery thriller and as the suspense mounts it was a the proverbial page turner and I just loved it. Lisa Jewell can certainly write a great book and this was a story that I found very different from what I expected and it kept me enthralled and entertained from page one. Beautifully written and constructed I think we have a real hit here and I highly recommend it.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone, Century for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I’ll start by review by saying The Family Upstairs is clearly going to be a bestseller. It’s absolutely thrilling, a fresh plot and a dark mystery...what more could you possibly want? Add in a brilliant author with a back for world building and you have it all. Stop reading my review and get this ordered! (And make sure you come back to craftyfox and thank me once you’ve read it!)

It’s the best book I’ve read this year and I promise it will take something very special to overtake this as my book of 2019.

Henry, his sister and his parents live a very privileged lifestyle in a large house in London. When he is twelve years old things start to change. His parents stop going out and stop spending money as readily as they always had. Then people come to stay. Little by little the house starts to feel like it no longer belongs to his family and Henry is not happy.
This story has quite a few twists and turns and things are not always as they seem.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I had the opportunity to read the next Lisa Jewell, I couldn’t press ‘request’ quickly enough. I am a massive fan of her work anyway and this didn’t fail to disappoint. Read in two days it is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL. Dark, mysterious, creepy, funny, heartwarming and just simply brilliant. LOVED IT.

Gave up a third of the way through. There doesn’t seem to be enough of a story line to make me want to pick it up again. It’s well written and it flows well, but it’s a new day and I have no inclination to pick it up and start reading again. There’s no hook to the storyline to make me desperate to get back into it to see what happens.