The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell is the thriller novel that my old New Jersey book club is discussing in May. They're taking things day by day and won't decide until a few days before their 20th of May meeting if they are going to meet in person for the first time in over a year or if they're going to have one more zoom meeting. On the off chance they have a zoom meeting, I read the book. It's not a genre that I normally read, so even if I can't participate in the meeting, I'm glad I was pushed to read something out of my norm.
The novel starts with Libby learning that she's inherited a house in a posh neighborhood of London from her birth parents. We quickly learn that Libby was found in the house at the same time that 3 adults were found dead in the kitchen. What does this all mean?
The story is told from three perspectives: Libby's in the present, trying to learn what happened in the house; Henry, the son of the family in the house, telling the story from the past; and finally, Lucy tells her own story which at first seems totally unconnected to the other two. Because of the way it was laid out, it took me several chapters to really get into the groove of what was going on and who was who.
Once I did, though, I really enjoyed this book and read thru it rather quickly. It's the type of book where you keep making and revising predictions and assumptions.
Some of the characters I really liked. Others were just plain creepy. I don't want to share what book I made connections with while I was reading as that might give away some of this story. In fact, I'm not even going to label this post the way I might otherwise label it.
I'd recommend this one.
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