The Family Upstairs

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell, a compelling mystery about a woman who inherits a house with a dark past.

Synopsis

In The Family Upstairs, Libby Jones inherits a multi-million-dollar mansion, where she had once been found as a 10-month-old baby. Along with it, she learns who her birth parents were, but also about their deaths in what investigators deemed to be a suicide pact as well as the two older siblings who went missing.

As Libby looks into the circumstances of their lives, deaths and disappearances, she risks uncovering dark secrets as her investigation leads her down a path of strange discoveries.

Meanwhile, in France, a musician living on the streets realizes that it's time for her to return to London to deal with things she once left behind.

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Book Review

I’m kicking off the new year (and new decade!) with a quick mystery novel from Lisa Jewell, The Family Upstairs, which was released in November 2019 in the U.S. Hope everyone had a fun and festive holiday season, with lots of yummy food and good books.

While the premise of The Family Upstairs seems like pretty standard mystery fare, I should warn you that this is sort of a weird story.

There’s a family that invites these other families to come live with them, a dude growing drugs at their house, a woman who is fiddler that’s busking on the streets and asking her abusive ex-husband for help, and a possible suicide pact/cult murder. None of this is implausible or that out there, but they’re a bit weird plot components. Whether or not it’s weird in a good or bad way probably depends on the reader.

The Good Stuff

That said, assuming you like the sound of it, I think the book is well-written and well-plotted. There are a number of “mystery” elements in the story. As the story proceeds, we slowly begin to unravel what exactly were the circumstances of Henry and Martina Lamb’s deaths. At the same time, there’s the question of what happened to the other kids in the house and what will happen when Libby is reunited with them.

I thought much of it was very well done. The mystery is compelling and paced evenly throughout the book. Jewell draws a compelling portrait of a family falling into the clutches of a conniving egomaniac. It’s not entirely satisfying, but is largely well-written and believable enough. I like that Jewell makes the effort to craft mystery novels that aren’t only centered around a handful of plot twists. Instead, she tries to offer her readers compelling stories that extend beyond that. But of course there’s some plot twists in there, too!

The parts with Libby and Miller investigating the story were probably my favorite parts, possibly because they’re the most normal/relate-able characters in the book. I guess I’m just basic like that, but either way, all the characters feel distinctive with unique personalities. I ended up enjoying this book a lot more than I initially thought I would.

Read it or Skip it?

I had lukewarm feelings going into book just because the plot didn’t particularly appeal to me. Cults, hippies, growing drugs, living on the streets, stuff like that is not really up my alley.

However, I think this is a highly subjective opinion, and there’s nothing objectively bad about any of it. In fact, after reading, my main thought was that the book is well-plotted and well-written as far as mysteries go. There’s a good cast of characters, an interesting plot, and Jewell has written a thriller that’s more than just some plot twists. Overall, I liked this book, even if the subject matter wasn’t to my tastes. The ending isn’t perfect (I was left with a few questions), but it’s not bad either.

I previously read The She Was Gone and was on the fence about Jewell, but after reading The Family Upstairs, I feel pretty sure I’ll be reading more of her work.

See The Family Upstairs on Amazon.

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of The Family Upstairs

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