Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
Audible sample Sample
The Family Upstairs: A Novel Kindle Edition
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA COVER TO COVER BOOK CLUB PICK
“Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author
“A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read.” —Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.
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.
In The Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAtria Books
- Publication dateNovember 5, 2019
- File size3497 KB
- ‘All men are weak,’ said Phin. ‘That’s the whole bloody trouble with the world. Too weak to love properly. Too weak to be wrong.’Highlighted by 943 Kindle readers
- The weakness of men lay at the root of every bad thing that had ever happened.Highlighted by 778 Kindle readers
- ‘My father’s going to take everything you own and then break your life. It’s the least I can bloody do.’Highlighted by 264 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
|
|
|
|
---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Mesmerizing. . . Another dark winner from Jewell, who expertly teases out her tricky tale with stunning moments and richly drawn characters.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Un-put-downable . . . distinct, well-developed characters, shifting points of view, and a disturbing narrative that pulses with life create an enthralling tale full of surprises.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Jewell’s chilling psychological thriller follows Libby as she uncovers the dark, twisty secrets of her family’s past.” —Washington Post
"The domestic suspense master unfurls another delectably familiar tale of family secrets." —Entertainment Weekly
“[A] fast-paced, imaginative tale that keeps the reader guessing right up until the book's final pages." —USA Today
"Lisa Jewell's story is spellbinding…and impossible to put down. By the time we unravel the last of her mysteries, we're almost choking on the malevolent threads that weave themselves into a coy and satisfying conclusion." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Jewell has a way with the quietly creepy subgenre of domestic suspense." —CrimeReads
“The Family Upstairs twists-and-turns until the very last page.” —Bustle
“No one can write a creepy domestic suspense thriller quite like Lisa Jewell.” —Goodreads
"So terrifying." —PopSugar
“The Family Upstairs is a fresh, inventive take on domestic suspense; effortlessly traversing intimate family secrets and vast, far-reaching conspiracies, Lisa Jewell’s newest release is a masterclass in psychological thriller plotting. Come for this book’s gorgeous cover and twisty plot, stay for its genuinely surprising and original variations on a story of family secrets and interpersonal suspense. An excellent new release and a standout among 2019’s psychological thriller offerings. . . . One of the most genuinely surprising, boundary-pushing psychological suspense novels I have read this year . . . crafted thoughtfully and carefully . . . so effective and authentic.” —Crime by the Book
“Lisa Jewell has done it again—rich, dark and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunnit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect.” —RUTH WARE, New York Times bestselling author
“Your hands quake. Your breath fades. Your heart wallops your ribs. Medical emergency or Lisa Jewell novel? Few writers of psychological suspense devise such swift, slippery plots; fewer still people their stories with characters so human and complex. The Family Upstairs glitters like a blade and cuts even deeper.” —A. J. FINN, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
“A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read. I was desperate to uncover all the twisting mysteries inside The Family Upstairs, layer by tangled layer. Eerie, suspenseful, and completely consuming.” —MEGAN MIRANDA, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls
“I’ve just raced through the brilliantly dark and disturbing The Family Upstairs. Absolutely couldn’t put it down, it’s so good!” —B. A. PARIS, New York Times bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors
“Taught and fast-paced.” —Kirkus Reviews
“I’m a big fan of Lisa’s books and had hoped to save it for my holiday next week, but failed miserably by devouring The Family Upstairs as soon as it arrived. I was hooked from the first page, I think it’s her best yet and hands down my favourite book so far this year.” —ALICE FEENEY, New York Times bestselling author of Sometimes I Lie
“Absolutely brilliant. Great characterisation, a fascinating and dark set-up and a great conclusion. She’s always great but this is next level stuff.” —SARAH PINBOROUGH, New York Times bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes
“The perfect poolside read. The perfect anywhere read, tbh. This book is riveting, moving, and out in August. Highest possible level of recommendation.” —SOPHIE HANNAH, New York Times bestselling author
“A twisty and engrossing story of betrayal and redemption. Reminiscent of Donna Tartt in scope and quality.” —IAN RANKIN, New York Times bestselling author
“An abandoned baby, a surprise inheritance, a cobwebbed Bohemian mansion—The Family Upstairs is rich in mystery from the very first page, and Lisa Jewell’s best book yet.” —ERIN KELLY, author of He Said, She Said
“A stunning psychological thriller with a horrific, yet all too believable, family story at its centre. Full of atmosphere and menace. I was gripped from the first page.” —ELLY GRIFFITHS, author of The Stranger Diaries
“Lisa Jewell is the most wonderful writer, and funnily enough we’ve written about a similar theme with our new books—cults, in microcosm and macrocosm. The Family Upstairs is out 8 August and I can’t rant enough about how brilliant it is.” —ALEX MARWOOD, author of The Wicked Girls
“Utterly compelling. Deliciously dark and twisty with characters who live on in your head. Lisa Jewell just keeps getting better and better.” —JANE CORRY, author of My Husband's Wife and I Looked Away
“Wow. Lisa Jewell has done it again. I absolutely loved The Family Upstairs. Intriguing, absorbing, unputdownable with characters so real they jump from the page.” —LAURA MARSHALL, author of Three Little Lies and Friend Request
“Whenever I pick up a Lisa Jewell novel I know I'm for a compelling, immersive and unputdownable read and The Family Upstairs is one of her very best. It’s an intriguing, claustrophobic and compelling mystery about a family that comes to stay and refuses to leave. I hugely enjoyed it and couldn't put it down.” —C. L. TAYLOR, author of The Missing and The Lie
"Intoxicating...[Lisa Jewell] is an author to watch." —Entertainment Weekly
Praise for Watching You:
“Quickly and assuredly, Jewell builds an ecosystem of countervailing suspicions…Tricky, clever, unexpected.” —New York Times Book Review
“A twisty British mystery...Brace yourself as Jewell stacks up the secrets, then lights a long, slow fuse.” —People
“Page one intrigued me. Page three hooked me. By page five, I was consumed. This compulsive, propulsive novel is both a seize-you-by-the-throat thriller and a genuinely moving family drama. Stellar.” —A. J. FINN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
"A twisty whodunit." —Cosmopolitan
"Big Little Lies-esque small town drama with stakes as high as Amy from Gone Girl's IQ, Lisa Jewell's latest thriller is not to be missed." —InStyle
"Watching You takes the idea of obsession to chilling heights." —PopSugar
"This suspense is going to have you turning the pages all night long." —Bustle
"Stellar domestic drama...Expert misdirection keeps the reader guessing, and the rug-pulled-out-from-beneath-your-feet conclusion—coupled with one final, bonechilling revelation—is stunning. Best not to bet on anyone. A compulsive read guaranteed to please fans of A. J. Finn and Ruth Ware." —Booklist (starred review)
"Jewell weaves a taut multiperspective, domestic/community suspense story that is sure to please fans of Ruth Ware and A.J. Finn." —Library Journal (starred review)
"[A] spine-tingling thriller...Lisa Jewell’s gripping novel Watching You unravels a tangled web of rumors—and a shocking twist." —Real Simple
“Eerie and bone-chilling…this page turner surprises and stuns.” —Woman's World Magazine
"A juicy new page-turner." —Brit+Co
“[A] crafty conundrum…the author smoothly juggles multiple story lines…prepare to be blindsided by the murder victim’s identity, not revealed until late in the game—and an even more stunning final surprise. Jewell does a masterly job of maintaining suspense.” —Publishers Weekly
“Jewell adeptly weaves together a complex array of characters in her latest thriller. The novel opens with the murder investigation and deftly maintains its intensity and brisk pace...Jewell's use of third-person narration allows her to explore each family's anxieties and sorrows, which ultimately makes this novel's ending all the more unsettling. An engrossing and haunting psychological thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews
"A master at unspooling tightly told tales, Jewell specializes in perfectly-pitched thrillers without sacrificing a drop of her characters’ complexities, secrets, and desires, and this latest one is no exception." —The Seattle Review of Books
"Jewell excels in creating complex characters, building tension and keeping readers in the dark yet riveted until the "Aha!" moments...this thriller unfolds and concludes in a very satisfying way." —Shelf Awareness
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
Libby picks up the letter off the doormat. She turns it in her hands. It looks very formal; the envelope is cream in color, made of high-grade paper, and feels as though it might even be lined with tissue. The postal frank says: “Smithkin Rudd & Royle Solicitors, Chelsea Manor Street, SW3.”
She takes the letter into the kitchen and sits it on the table while she fills the kettle and puts a tea bag in a mug. Libby is pretty sure she knows what’s in the envelope. She turned twenty-five last month. She’s been subconsciously waiting for this envelope. But now that it’s here she’s not sure she can face opening it.
She picks up her phone and calls her mother.
“Mum,” she says. “It’s here. The letter from the trustees.”
She hears a silence at the other end of the line. She pictures her mum in her own kitchen, a thousand miles away in Dénia: pristine white units, lime-green color-coordinated kitchen accessories, sliding glass doors onto a small terrace with a distant view to the Mediterranean, her phone held to her ear in the crystal-studded case that she refers to as her bling.
“Oh,” she says. “Right. Gosh. Have you opened it?”
“No. Not yet. I’m just having a cup of tea first.”
“Right,” she says again. Then she says, “Shall I stay on the line? While you do it?”
“Yes,” says Libby. “Please.”
She feels a little breathless, as she sometimes does when she’s just about to stand up and give a sales presentation at work, like she’s had a strong coffee. She takes the tea bag out of the mug and sits down. Her fingers caress the corner of the envelope and she inhales.
“OK,” she says to her mother, “I’m doing it. I’m doing it right now.”
Her mum knows what’s in here. Or at least she has an idea, though she was never told formally what was in the trust. It might, as she has always said, be a teapot and a ten-pound note.
Libby clears her throat and slides her finger under the flap. She pulls out a sheet of thick cream paper and scans it quickly:
To Miss Libby Louise Jones
As trustee of the Henry and Martina Lamb Trust created on 12 July 1977, I propose to make the distribution from it to you described in the attached schedule…
She puts down the covering letter and pulls out the accompanying paperwork.
“Well?” says her mum, breathlessly.
“Still reading,” she replies.
She skims and her eye is caught by the name of a property. Sixteen Cheyne Walk, SW3. She assumes it is the property her birth parents were living in when they died. She knows it was in Chelsea. She knows it was big. She assumed it was long gone. Boarded up. Sold. Her breath catches hard at the back of her throat when she realizes what she’s just read.
“Er,” she says.
“What?”
“It looks like… No, that can’t be right.”
“What!”
“The house. They’ve left me the house.”
“The Chelsea house?”
“Yes,” she says.
“The whole house?”
“I think so.” There’s a covering letter, something about nobody else named on the trust coming forward in due time. She can’t digest it at all.
“My God. I mean, that must be worth…”
Libby breathes in sharply and raises her gaze to the ceiling. “This must be wrong,” she says. “This must be a mistake.”
“Go and see the solicitors,” says her mother. “Call them. Make an appointment. Make sure it’s not a mistake.”
“But what if it’s not a mistake? What if it’s true?”
“Well then, my angel,” says her mother—and Libby can hear her smile from all these miles away—“you’ll be a very rich woman indeed.”
Libby ends the call and stares around her kitchen. Five minutes ago, this kitchen was the only kitchen she could afford, this flat the only one she could buy, here in this quiet street of terraced cottages in the backwaters of St. Albans. She remembers the flats and houses she saw during her online searches, the little intakes of breath as her eye caught upon the perfect place—a suntrap terrace, an eat-in kitchen, a five-minute walk to the station, a bulge of ancient leaded windows, the suggestion of cathedral bells from across a green—and then she would see the price and feel herself a fool for ever thinking it might be for her.
She compromised on everything in the end to find a place that was close to her job and not too far from the train station. There was no gut instinct as she stepped across the threshold; her heart said nothing to her as the estate agent showed her around. But she made it a home to be proud of, painstakingly creaming off the best that T.J.Maxx had to offer, and now her badly converted, slightly awkward one-bedroom flat makes her feel happy. She bought it; she adorned it. It belongs to her.
But now it appears she is the owner of a house on the finest street in Chelsea and suddenly her flat looks like a ridiculous joke. Everything that was important to her five minutes ago feels like a joke—the £1,500-a-year raise she was just awarded at work, the hen weekend in Barcelona next month that took her six months to save for, the MAC eye shadow she “allowed” herself to buy last weekend as a treat for getting the pay raise, the soft frisson of abandoning her tightly managed monthly budget for just one glossy, sweet-smelling moment in House of Fraser, the weightlessness of the tiny MAC bag swinging from her hand, the shiver of placing the little black capsule in her makeup bag, of knowing that she owned it, that she might in fact wear it in Barcelona, where she might also wear the dress her mother bought her for Christmas, the one from French Connection with the lace panels she’d wanted for ages. Five minutes ago her joys in life were small, anticipated, longed-for, hard-earned and saved-up-for, inconsequential little splurges that meant nothing in the scheme of things but gave the flat surface of her life enough sparkles to make it worth getting out of bed every morning to go and do a job which she liked but didn’t love.
Now she owns a house in Chelsea and the proportions of her existence have been blown apart.
She slides the letter back into its expensive envelope and finishes her tea.
Product details
- ASIN : B07P5HB99D
- Publisher : Atria Books (November 5, 2019)
- Publication date : November 5, 2019
- Language : English
- File size : 3497 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 349 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #657 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #7 in Women's Psychological Fiction
- #29 in Domestic Thrillers (Kindle Store)
- #36 in Domestic Thrillers (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
LISA JEWELL was born in London in 1968.
Her first novel, Ralph's Party, was the best- selling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has written another twenty novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls, Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs, The Family Remains and The Night She Disappeared, all of which were Richard & Judy Book Club picks.
Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over thirty languages. She lives in north London with her husband and two daughters.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
I so wanted to love Lisa Jewell's newest literary thriller, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS (Atria, November 2019), and while there's much to love and obsesses over--crumbling mansion, dysfunctional family, London, I was simply unimpressed. Wait--maybe that's not the best word. I struggled to feel any real connection to the story. Don't get me wrong. There's so much going on here. Jewell has taken a 'traditional house story' and ramped it up. Considerably.
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is dark, multilayered, disturbing, and definitely done at the hands of a master storyteller.
Here's the general plot: Libby Jones is twenty-five when she learns the identity of her birth parents and that she is the sole inheriter (is that a word?) of a crumbling (abandoned) mansion in a very desirable neighborhood of London. Twenty-five years ago, the police were summoned to that very home to find a healthy, well-nourished baby happy in her crib. Libby was that baby. But why? And what happened to her parents?
Libby's story isn't the only one we follow in THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS. Told by several POVs, I found the structure of this book a little hard to follow at times. There are various time periods, plenty of characters, a good amount of lies and deceit. And while I am usually good and fine with that kind of reading, this one felt a bit jarring, at least to me, for at least the first third of the book. It started to make sense, but then the plot got a little too convoluted and I felt restless, losing interest. However, there were several OMG! moments I didn't see coming, which hooked me right back in.
I connected most closely to Lucy's story and felt some of her tales of reinvention could have stood as a solid novel itself. The ending is a bit ambiguous and I could see there being a sequel, but maybe not...perhaps another reader will interpret it differently.
Keep in mind much of THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS has to do with cults and a charismatic male leader. He had absolute control over the family, from the way they dressed, what they ate, how and when they exercised, and much manipulation-- emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. If you're a reader with triggers: rape, incest, animal cruelty, suicide/murder, then please select with caution.
Readers who enjoyed EDUCATED (which was a memoir, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is not) will also like this title, as well as Karin Slaughter's THE GOOD DAUGHTER with a touch of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (Shirley Jackson) and also Gilly Macmillan's THE NANNY.
L.Lindsay|Always with a Book
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2019
I so wanted to love Lisa Jewell's newest literary thriller, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS (Atria, November 2019), and while there's much to love and obsesses over--crumbling mansion, dysfunctional family, London, I was simply unimpressed. Wait--maybe that's not the best word. I struggled to feel any real connection to the story. Don't get me wrong. There's so much going on here. Jewell has taken a 'traditional house story' and ramped it up. Considerably.
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is dark, multilayered, disturbing, and definitely done at the hands of a master storyteller.
Here's the general plot: Libby Jones is twenty-five when she learns the identity of her birth parents and that she is the sole inheriter (is that a word?) of a crumbling (abandoned) mansion in a very desirable neighborhood of London. Twenty-five years ago, the police were summoned to that very home to find a healthy, well-nourished baby happy in her crib. Libby was that baby. But why? And what happened to her parents?
Libby's story isn't the only one we follow in THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS. Told by several POVs, I found the structure of this book a little hard to follow at times. There are various time periods, plenty of characters, a good amount of lies and deceit. And while I am usually good and fine with that kind of reading, this one felt a bit jarring, at least to me, for at least the first third of the book. It started to make sense, but then the plot got a little too convoluted and I felt restless, losing interest. However, there were several OMG! moments I didn't see coming, which hooked me right back in.
I connected most closely to Lucy's story and felt some of her tales of reinvention could have stood as a solid novel itself. The ending is a bit ambiguous and I could see there being a sequel, but maybe not...perhaps another reader will interpret it differently.
Keep in mind much of THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS has to do with cults and a charismatic male leader. He had absolute control over the family, from the way they dressed, what they ate, how and when they exercised, and much manipulation-- emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. If you're a reader with triggers: rape, incest, animal cruelty, suicide/murder, then please select with caution.
Readers who enjoyed EDUCATED (which was a memoir, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is not) will also like this title, as well as Karin Slaughter's THE GOOD DAUGHTER with a touch of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (Shirley Jackson) and also Gilly Macmillan's THE NANNY.
L.Lindsay|Always with a Book
Top reviews from other countries
While all around us looks normal, you never know what goes on behind closed doors