Check out our Most Anticipated Books for 2025

Book Summary and Reviews of The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

The Family Upstairs

by Lisa Jewell

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Nov 2019, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

From the 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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"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)

"Mesmerizing...Another dark winner from Jewell, who expertly teases out her tricky tale with stunning moments and richly drawn characters." - Booklist (starred review)

"A twisty British mystery...Brace yourself as Jewell stacks up the secrets, then lights a long, slow fuse." - People

"This thriller is taut and fast-paced but lacks compelling protagonists." - Kirkus Reviews

"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

"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

This information about The Family Upstairs was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

techeditor

Absorbing Page Turner
Of the five Lisa Jewell novels I have read, I think THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is probably my favorite. Not that it’s a nice story. You could definitely say it is sickening. But it is so absorbing and quite a page turner.

Libby learns that she has inherited a home worth several million dollars. But she also learns, little by little, what went on in that home and who her true family really is.

Libby hears about the rich family—mother, father, son, daughter— who lived there back in the 1980s. And she learns the story about another family who moved into their attic bedrooms— temporarily, they said. But the people upstairs stayed and stayed. Not only did they not leave, the father of the family upstairs, David, took control of the lives of everyone in the house.

So what does this have to do with Libby? Is she the baby left behind? She will discover all this and how she is related to these people.

Elizabeth of Silver's Reviews

Creepy, Bizarre, and Disturbing
Libby was looking forward to her 25th birthday because she knew she would be coming into an inheritance.

What she didn’t know was what she had inherited.

Libby finds out she has inherited her family’s million-dollar home that was haunted by horrible events the family endured.

Meanwhile there are some other people who know about the day she turned 25 and what Libby inherited.

We meet Lucy who says she MUST be there for Libby’s 25th birthday, and we meet Henry who lived in the house with all the strangers during the events and when the tragedy struck.

Henry’s story is the most bizarre and terrifying.

Phin is also a frightening character who lived in the house.

David is a character that I immensely disliked and was the cause of all the evilness.

When Libby arrives and is taking a look after all these years at the empty house with its locked-from-the-outside doors, with a ladder leading to the attic, and a garden of illegal plants you will be pulled in by the description and simple curiosity. All this made me wonder what really went on in that house and how no one noticed.

THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS has many characters, odd characters, and multiple story lines but story lines that all fit together and center around the inherited house that held evil.

Readers who enjoy Lisa Jewell’s books will not be disappointed in her newest.

THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is creepy, bizarre, and disturbing. 4/5

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Lisa Jewell Author Biography

Photo: Lucinda Chua

Lisa Jewell is the internationally bestselling author of sixteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone, as well as I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In. Her debut novel, Ralph's Party, was an instant Sunday Times (London) bestseller, and more recently her books have become #1 bestsellers in Canada and the UK. In total, her novels have sold over 2 million copies across the English speaking world. Her work has also been translated into sixteen languages. Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

Link to Lisa Jewell's Website

Other books by Lisa Jewell at BookBrowse

7 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Book of George
    The Book of George
    by Kate Greathead
    The premise of The Book of George, the witty, highly entertaining new novel from Kate Greathead, is ...
  • Book Jacket: The Sequel
    The Sequel
    by Jean Hanff Korelitz
    In Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Sequel, Anna Williams-Bonner, the wife of recently deceased author ...
  • Book Jacket: My Good Bright Wolf
    My Good Bright Wolf
    by Sarah Moss
    Sarah Moss has been afflicted with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa since her pre-teen years but...
  • Book Jacket
    Canoes
    by Maylis De Kerangal
    The short stories in Maylis de Kerangal's new collection, Canoes, translated from the French by ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

X M T S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.