Libby Jones is a young London woman who knows she’s adopted. She’s fine with this, though she’s always been curious about her origins and biological family. When an inheritance for a large home in Chelsea falls in her lap upon her 25th birthday, the details of her birth family begin to unfurl. She has no idea what to do with the things she learns.
The story is told from three perspectives, the first and most obvious being Libby’s. The two other voices are a homeless street performer (with her two children) who plays the fiddle for coins on the Côte d’Azur, and a man who tells his story in the first person as if he’s writing a letter.
We knew these three people are connected, but we need to reach the length of the book to put all the pieces together.
And wow. What a story – suspense at every turn, an ever-growing list of nagging questions, and the sort of chapter endings that do not allow you to stop reading, or in my case, stop listening. I finished it in three days because I had to know who Libby really was and how this man and woman were connected to her.
The Family Upstairs is as much of a family saga as it is a mystery. There is death and intrigue, lost love and relational turmoil. The story is full of twists and turns, and even when the three main characters finally collide, there are still truths to unearth.
This was my first introduction to Lisa Jewell’s work, and I’m already into Then She Was Gone. I listened to The Family Upstairs on Audible, and I’m glad I did because I’ll surely listen to it again.
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