The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Hello Beautiful People! Welcome to a new review! For this review I get into a two-book series by Lisa Jewell called The Family Upstairs. Diving into the first book I have to say that I am itching to read the second one. The Family Upstairs is a thriller mystery that follows generations of family secrets and how one woman’s birthday exposes it all.

Main Characters:

• Libby Jones: Was adopted as a baby and is shocked to learn that her biological family whom she has never known left an inheritance to her, receiving this inheritance throws her in a web of mysteries trying to figure out what happened to her family all of those years ago
• Henry Lamb: Is Libby’s biological brother who gives us a past perspective throughout the book about what their life was like before Libby was adopted
• Lucy Smith: Libby’s sister who like Henry knows that Libby will inherit their home on her birthday and goes to her to try and tell her about their past
• Martina and Henry Sr.: The children’s parents who are taken advantage of by people who promise to bring them a better life
• David and Phin: David is Phin’s father and the two along with Phin’s sisters move in with the Lamb family and start a self-sufficient lifestyle in the home that turns into something more
• Birdie: David’s girlfriend who came to the Lamb home with a boyfriend, and David with a wife, but the two eventually leave their partners to be together

My Review

I was a bit hesitant going into The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell. Don’t get me wrong Lisa is a fantastic author and I am pretty sure I’ve enjoyed everything I have read by her. It just seems like the theme of having a mystery surround around a house is a common theme in mystery thrillers these days. Given that it’s been a plot that’s been played out a few times I just wasn’t sure how Lisa was going to make this one interesting. But boy did she. I have to say that she is the queen of writing characters that you aren’t sure you can’t trust. This aspect makes you wonder until the very end and makes it a hard book to put down.

Overall I gave The Family Upstairs an 8/10 rating. While the book is super enjoyable and definitely a great read, I wouldn’t say that it was super unique. I definitely didn’t see some twists coming, but there were a few that I did, or at least definitely guessed that they were coming. There are a few loose ends to this book but that’s because there is a second. Going into the book I originally didn’t realize that, and was kind of disappointed that so much was left undealt when the book ended. The end of the book though happily shared that there is a second and I was pumped. I definitely want to know how some of those loose ends tie up. This book does a good job of getting you tied into the drama of the lives of the different characters and wanting to know what happens next.

The book revolves around 25-year-old Libby who receives some shocking news on her birthday. Knowing that she was adopted as a baby, Libby had never been connected to her birth family, or known that they were even alive or around. When she receives a notice of inheritance she’s surprised to find out that this inheritance isn’t exactly liquid and is in the form of an abandoned home. Libby comes to learn that her past before her adoption is pretty messy and that it’s presumed that her parents died in a cult-style mass suicide situation and her siblings disappeared off the face of the earth when the house was found abandoned with the bodies inside. No one knew what happened to the Lamb and David’s teenage children, so Libby was put up for adoption and given a new name to hide her past. Now being thrown into the mystery of what happened to her family all those years ago, Libby is forced to figure out who she really is. Mixed with her present perspective is the present perspective of Lucy, and the past perspective of Henry. Through all of their perspectives, we start to piece together the puzzle of what happened to this family all those years ago.

While there are a lot of characters in this book I will say I didn’t have a hard time keeping up with everyone. Sometimes when there are a lot of characters in a book I have a hard time keeping up with everyone and what their connections to the story are. I felt like Lisa did a good job at making it clear which characters were meant to play a bigger role and which a smaller one. One aspect of this book is that in some parts it was a bit predictable. I think this was because there were some cliché aspects to a few of the characters that gave away some things that came up in the book later on. I didn’t feel like a lot was given away, and a lot of the twists that get exposed I didn’t see coming, there were just a few I did.

I enjoyed getting to see Libby try to discover herself as an adult who is learning all this new information about her past. I think she was a good neutral character to pick, and she definitely was a good representation of how the trauma that her siblings went through had an effect on them that she doesn’t have because she never experienced it. It shows that there is a reason for the way her siblings act and why they disappeared after her parents died.

Overall a super twisty thriller that’s a great weekend read. I crushed the book out pretty quickly and was always wanting to know what happened next. I think it’s hard to go wrong with a Lisa Jewell book so I would definitely recommend checking this book out, especially if you have enjoyed her other works. It has this similar vibe to it that a lot of her other books have in which you never really know who is telling the truth and who as the reader you can trust.

Have you checked out The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell before? What did you think?

*** Don’t go any further if you don’t want to read any spoilers ***

When it came to the different twists in the book there was a lot, hopefully, I don’t forget any.

I think the first big twist that gets exposed, and the one that I saw coming was that Lucy is really Libby’s birth mother and not Lucy and Henry’s sister like she had assumed. I started to guess this when Lucy started to go to some pretty extreme lengths to get back to London to try and meet Libby, and when some parts from Henry of the past were clearly leading up to it. In Henry’s part from the past, he talks about how David (essentially the cult leader) had impregnated his mother so that she could have a baby for him and Birdie. I originally thought that this was Libby until the parts came up where Henry plots to try and give his mother a natural abortion due to the disgust he had for her having another man’s child. When he successfully did this by studying natural herbal books that other cult members brought to their home, I knew that something else was going to happen. I knew that David wouldn’t give up on having this baby and based on some of the other things he does in the book I just knew he would go after one of the teenage girls next, and I was right.

With it now exposed that Lucy was really Libby’s mother, the next question came of how did the adults die? Well throughout the book it’s exposed that David, Birdie and the other adults neglect and abuse the children. Most have been unable to leave the home since David arrived, and he worked hard to alienate the family and make it so that their whole world was him. When Lucy gives birth to Libby David takes the baby away from her and raises her with Birdie in the home. This snaps Lucy into the fact that at 14 David never loved her and just wanted her mothering capabilities. The teens all conspire and idea to get out of the house, and Henry and his herbs come to the rescue again… well kinda. Turns out Henry was very much an armature in his herbal skills and when he tried to drug the adults, he ultimately killed them all. He claims it was an accident but who really knows. Henry was a really hard-to-trust character and would often lie and then it would be exposed by another character that he was lying. I have my suspicions about him because I almost get the sense that he is just lying to himself so he will believe it’s true.

The book ends with Libby, Lucy and Henry all reunited. They go on the search for Phin who Lucy exposed is Libby’s real father even though she was sleeping with David as well. I was a bit weirded out by this and I was confused about how she would know it was Phin’s over David’s, I mean she was sleeping with them at the same time it seems so who really knows. Given that Phin seems to still be alive, but is just hiding from the world, the three plan to go and try to find him. Henry gives this creepy perspective where it seems like he’s been searching for Phin for a long time due to some puppy love he had for him when they were youths.

Like I said before the ending was a bit for about keeping ends loose for the second book rather than tying them up. I am excited to read the second book I am curious to see what will happen when they find Phin, and if some of the other things that other characters have done will come back to bite them. I hope you enjoyed this review! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review.