Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio for the ALC and Atria Books #partner, for the advanced copy of The Family Remains in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Atria Books / Simon & Schuster ALC
Published: August 9, 2022
Summary:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell comes an intricate and affecting novel about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this standalone sequel to The Family Upstairs.
Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.
Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.
After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.
As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.
In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller, The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.
My thoughts:
I read this last year, but just realized I never shared my review for it. I was just talking with a friend about the book after we had heard Lisa Jewell discuss it a few times during the crime festival I attended last month and when I went to look back at my review, I realized it never got published, so here it is, with some updates.
I am a huge fan of Lisa Jewell’s books and had really loved The Family Upstairs, so when I heard that she was writing a sequel to it, I was thrilled! And let me just say…it was just as good as the first one. Now, if you haven’t read The Family Upstairs, this one does stand on its own – Lisa Jewell does do a pretty good job of catching the readers up on what transpired in the first book without rehashing every little detail, however that first book is just so good that I highly recommend reading it first, but that’s just my opinion.
Once again, I loved revisiting these characters and being introduced to some new ones. I devoured this book, loving the way the multiple timelines and plot helped create tension and drama. It is fast-paced, a little creepy and has just the right amount of twists and turns to keep you engaged. This book picks up well into the adult life for the children of The Family Upstairs and we learn how they have coped with the trauma they lived through.
I absolutely loved Henry’s character – he intrigued me in The Family Remains and I was excited that we got to know him even more here in this book. He has such a sinister, yet disturbing nature about him and I just couldn’t get enough of him!
This was the sequel I never knew I needed and I’m so glad Lisa Jewell decided to write! While it’s not quite as dark as The Family Upstairs is, it’s still just as twisted and suspenseful and I loved every second of it.
Audio thoughts:
I loved that this was narrated by a full cast. I think with the amount of characters in the book, having so many different narrators really made this audio production stand out. All the narrators – Dominic Thorburn, Bea Holland, Hugh Quarshie, Josh Dylan, Thomas Judd and Eleanor Tomlinson – are all new-to-me but they were all fantastic. Their pacing and intonation were spot on and they made listening to this a real treat!
