Published by Arrow (Penguin RandomHouse)
Publication Date: 12th December 2019
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Book Description:
In a large house in London's fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.
In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.
They've been dead for several days.
Who has been looking after the baby?
And where did they go?
Two entangled families.
A house with the darkest of secrets.
My Thoughts:
I'm rather late to the party on this one. The world and his wife seems to have read this before me, and not only that there's news of a sequel as I read it.
I have to admit I have passed over this book a few times in my search for my next read purely due to the whole cult theme which is the basis for the novel; it's a subject I have to be in the right mindset to read about. Although in this book it is less of an obvious cult which takes over the property in Chelsea, more of a very devious, manipulative man taking advantage of an extremely vulnerable couple.
There are two timeframes within the book: the present day with a young lady named Libby inheriting the aforementioned property in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea and the historical background to the house in the late 1980s when Henry and Martina Lamb bought it and the ensuing horrors which unfolded. There is also another thread in the present day with Lucy and her children living a hand to mouth existence in the Cote d'Azur; homeless and struggling to get by it's left to the reader to try and piece together how this little unfortunate family unit fits in.
I have to admit I kept getting Libby and Lucy confused - I do wish authors would use completely different names for their characters as it doesn't take much for me to get muddled, especially at the beginning of a book where I'm settling the characters in to my head and getting the foundations of the storyline fixed in place. Once I got past that issue I have to say I didn't really gel with any of the people involved. On one hand I felt sorry for them and their circumstances/misfortunes but on the other I needed them to take responsibility for what they were doing. And then there's David Thomsen, evil personified. I cannot tell you how much I disliked this man. Therefore a character well-written. I don't think the man did a nice deed throughout his time in the book and I have to admit to wanting to hug Henry for his determination in trying to remove David from the house. It was just unfortunate that the knock on effect had such dire consequences.
I'm not sure about the ending of the book, it all seemed to fit a bit too nicely for all that had gone before and it is only the fact that I know the sequel is coming which makes me happy with its conclusion. It doesn't feel like the end, more of a pause, and I am so glad that Lisa Jewell is giving us more to the story to perhaps give us a more comfortable closure for the story. I can't wait for The Family Upstairs 2 and certainly won't be leaving it on the shelf as long after publication as I did book one!
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 eighteen novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls, Then She Was Gone and The Family Upstairs (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 twenty-five languages. She lives in north London with her husband, two teenage daughters, one cat, one guinea pig and the best dog in the world.
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