The baby is twenty-five.
With these words, the lives of 4 individuals will change, all over again.
Almost twenty-five years ago, the bodies of three adults were found, apparently dead in a suicide pact. They wore black robes and no shoes, leading police to suspect they were in a cult. There had been reports that other adults and children were also living in the house, but a thorough search turned up no one else . . . except for an infant girl, who had been cared for.
For those twenty-five years, no one else showed up at 16 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, a fashionable neighborhood in London. No one showed up there until Libby Jones turned 25 and got a letter from an attorney saying that the house had been held in trust for her. Adopted as an infant, Libby had a good life growing up, not perfect but pretty happy. But she inherited the house at 16 Cheyne Walk, because she was that infant that the police had found.
Before Libby can decide what to do about the house, she wants to find out the truth of what happened to her parents. Were they really in a cult? Did they really kill themselves? And who took care of her until the police showed up? She starts her search for answers by finding the journalist who first reported on what the police found in the house that night. Their journey to find the answers they have both waited 25 years for is a powerful step forward to insight and healing for several different families.
Lisa Jewell’s moving new thriller The Family Upstairs is a crazy patchwork of present and past, of secrets and truths, of growing up and growing hopeless. Told in alternating perspectives from Libby in the present, Henry in the past, and Lucy in the present, we slowly get to piece together what happened in the house all those years ago.
The Lambs were a happy family, well-to-do parents with a son and a daughter. But as the riches dried up and they had to make sacrifices to stay in their beautiful house, the family took in boarders and cut back on expenses. Instead of the fancy school they were enrolled in, the children were home-schooled. The family rented out the house for a music video. They stopped taking long trips. They stopped buying all the latest fashions. But there is a long road between budgeting carefully and taking part in a suicide pact in a house bereft of all luxury, all comforts, all hope. What exactly happened, when the other family moved in upstairs?
The emotional journeys of all the children in this house is crazy and disturbing and moving and brilliant in a way that only a master storyteller can offer. Lisa Jewell’s ability to craft such a compelling tale is a testament to her skill and hard work, and we are all the better for it.
If you are looking for another creepy thriller for fall, or if you want a story about a family more disturbed than yours before you have to spend the holidays with them, or if you just love a powerful suspense story from a master, then pick up The Family Upstairs. But be careful picking it up, because it’s almost impossible to put it back down until the last page.
Galleys for The Family Upstairs were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.