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The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Thriller

The Family Upstairs

Repeat author

Lisa Jewell is back at Book of the Month – other BOTMs include Invisible Girl and None of This Is True and The Family Remains and The Night She Disappeared and Then She Was Gone and Watching You.

by Lisa Jewell

Excellent choice

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Quick take

Fascinated by cults? This is for you. From the author of Then She Was Gone, a mansion haunted by mysterious murders.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Fast_Read

    Fast read

  • Illustrated icon, Psychological

    Psychological

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Creepy

    Creepy

Synopsis

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Family Upstairs.

The Family Upstairs

Prologue

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.

I was nearly eleven when they came, and my sister was nine.

They lived with us for more than five years and they turned everything very, very dark. My sister and I had to learn how to survive.

And when I was sixteen, and my sister was fourteen, the baby came.

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Why I love it

I have a confession to make: I am a sucker for a good domestic suspense novel. Nothing makes me happier than a dark and soapy multigenerational mystery, and nobody excels at the genre like Lisa Jewell. Her characters are reliably unreliable, her mysteries are unnervingly twisty, and she manages to do all that without sacrificing well-developed relationships and emotionally layered characters. Which is quite a feat, especially in her latest book, which also happens to feature poisonous gardens, creepy cults, acid trips, and mass murder!

Libby Jones was adopted as a baby and grew up wondering who her birth parents were. Now an adult, she is stunned to receive a letter not only informing her who her mom and dad were, but also notifying her that she is the sole beneficiary of their abandoned London mansion. Said mansion just happens to be the location where her parents were found dead 25 years ago (of course!!). As Libby begins to unravel the secrets around her parents’ deaths, she soon suspects she might not be the only relative looking for answers.

Told from three alternating points of view, The Family Upstairs is a fast-paced whodunit that will keep you guessing until the final delicious sentence. If I had any issues with the book, it would be that my productive Sunday afternoon came to a screeching standstill when I naively thought it would be a good idea to start this unputdownable read. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Member ratings (24,982)

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Browse all audiobooks
View all
Camp Zero
Maame
Hang the Moon
Divine Rivals
Weyward
Someday, Maybe
We Are the Light
White Horse
The Cloisters
Jacqueline in Paris
Hester
The Kiss Curse
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
Foul Lady Fortune
Palace of Treason
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Night Charter
The Woman in Cabin 10
The Nightingale
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Eat Only When You're Hungry
Sourdough
Top Ten
The Rules of Magic
The Wife Between Us
The Great Alone
Circe
The Mars Room
Calypso
Nine Perfect Strangers
Severance
The Silent Patient
Golden State
The Winter Sister
The Other Woman
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Falter
The Players Ball
Sky Without Stars
Necessary People
Bitcoin Billionaires
Again, But Better
There's Something About Sweetie
All the Light We Cannot See
Ask Again, Yes
Free Food for Millionaires
Three Women
Things You Save in a Fire
On The Clock
Dominicana
The Turn of the Key
Saving Zoë
Permanent Record
The Goldfinch
Fate of the Fallen
Wayward Son
The Family Upstairs
Ninth House
When the Stars Lead to You
My Friend Anna
Red, White & Royal Blue
The Queen of Nothing
Where the World Ends
When We Were Vikings
Throw Like a Girl
Not So Pure and Simple
You Are Not Alone
Anna K
Yes No Maybe So
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
The Boyfriend Project
Big Friendship
The Shadows
Head Over Heels
Notes on a Silencing
The Night Swim
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Anxious People
One by One
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Invisible Girl
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
Group
In a Holidaze
This Close to Okay
The Wife Upstairs
More Myself
We Could Be Heroes
Aftershocks
The City We Became
Black Buck
Honey Girl
Infinite Country
The Four Winds
What's Mine and Yours
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
Too Good to Be True
The Last Thing He Told Me
Ariadne
Anna K Away
The Maidens
The Other Black Girl
One Last Stop
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Razorblade Tears
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Damnation Spring
Once There Were Wolves
Rock Paper Scissors
The Neighbor's Secret
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Apples Never Fall
Everything We Didn't Say
The Book of Magic
The Collective
A Little Hope
How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days
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A History of Wild Places
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But You Seemed So Happy
The Postmistress of Paris
Reckless Girls
Love & Other Disasters
The Golden Couple
A River Enchanted
Vladimir
Don't Cry for Me
Peach Blossom Spring
Death on the Nile
The Christie Affair
The Paris Apartment
Tell Me Everything
Blacktop Wasteland
Kaikeyi
Like a Sister
Bomb Shelter
Yerba Buena
The Change
Siren Queen
Bloomsbury Girls
Things We Do in the Dark
First Born
The Bodyguard
The It Girl
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
Bronze Drum
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
The Attic Child
Babel
Kiss Her Once for Me
The Light Pirate
Queen of Thieves
Lunar Love
All the Dangerous Things
Hell Bent
What Lies in the Woods
The Reunion
Independence
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
The House Is On Fire
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
A Wilderness of Stars
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Bloodmarked
Before I Let Go
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The Lost Apothecary