But the second half definitely kicked up the pace a notch and had me rushing for the end. The first half is a little slow at times, especially for a thriller, but with enough hints about the mystery to keep me curious and interested. Mostly, this applies to the second half of the book, when things actually really start happening. ❧ The writing is really smooth and easy to read, with consistently dropped foreshadowing that kept me on the edge of my seat. Lisa Jewell obviously has a talent for writing, and I’ll for sure be checking out her work in the future, even though I’ll admit that there were things about this book that made me entirely uncomfortable and I’m still not sure where I fall on them. It was a wild ride that kept me guessing and gave me goosebumps. The Family Upstairs is a dark, twisty novel that reveals its secrets little by little, as a seemingly idyllic family transforms into anything but. I didn’t realize, based on the blurb, that this involved a cult, which I thought was even more interesting. That blurb gives all the creepy vibes, and I am absolutely trash for hidden, likely dangerous, family secrets. Ever since I read The Whisper Man last year, I’ve been on a thriller/mystery kick, so of course I jumped at the chance to read this. Quotes are taken from an unfinished version and may differ from the final product.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for an eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

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. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. 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. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. 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. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am. Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. Published by: Atria Books on November 5, 2019įrom the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone and Watching You comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.

The family upstairs pages