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.
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Lisa was born in London in 1968. Her mother was a secretary and her father was a textile agent and she was brought up in the northernmost reaches of London with her two younger sisters. She was educated at a Catholic girls’ Grammar school in Finchley. After leaving school at sixteen she spent two years at Barnet College doing an arts foundation course and then two years at Epsom School of Art & Design studying Fashion Illustration and Communication.
She worked for the fashion chain Warehouse for three years as a PR assistant and then for Thomas Pink, the Jermyn Street shirt company for four years as a receptionist and PA. She started her first novel, Ralph’s Party, for a bet in 1996. She finished it in 1997 and it was published by Penguin books in May 1998. It went on to become the best-selling debut novel of that year.
She has since written a further nine novels, as is currently at work on her eleventh.
She now lives in an innermost part of north London with her husband Jascha, an IT consultant, her daughters, Amelie and Evie and her silver tabbies, Jack and Milly.
Check out Lisa's website for more information.
Review:
I have read a few books by Lisa Jewell and every one of them hook me in. The twists of characters and suspense of the plot what more can I ask for. I was really looking forward to reading this new book and then started looking through some early reviews and saw people talking about how there are a lot of different characters. I was hoping it wouldn't get too confusing. Lisa Jewell did a fantastic job in roping me in right from chapter one when she introduced Libby Jones and a house she is to inherit from her biological parents that she knows nothing about. As for too many characters there are three main characters that Jewell goes back and forth between, then we meet others in their lives. Henry is the one who tells the story of the past as Libby learns about her inheritance, Lucy working on getting back to her old house to meet "the baby" from 24 years ago.
The story is intertwined between these three characters, the dark world Lucy and Henry lived in and one where an innocent baby arrived. Who are the family upstairs? What are their plans for the family that took them in? A deep and dark story of abuse and brainwashing, occult and medicinal herbs. Another great novel by Lisa Jewell. This might just be my favourite so far. 5 out of 5 stars! A must read for all Lisa Jewell fans!
~*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*~
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