Staff Pick
As a birthday present, a friend gave me an advanced reader copy of this book. I initially ignored it because I thought the title sounded ridiculous (Don't judge a book by its title, amiright or amiright?).
One night, I was feeling especially bored, and I picked it up. I read the first page and instantly was like, "Oh. So this is actually good." Told through the eyes of three characters, each unreliable in their own way, the story reaches into the past and teases you with the present. What seems like a run-of-the-mill story about repressed memory turns into a haunting story of cults, murders, and dark romances.
It's hard to really write a description that gives this book justice, but it's a book that I consumed in just a couple of days (I'm actually a really slow reader. I've been reading Wuthering Heights for the last 10 years.).
I couldn't go to sleep because my eyeballs were relentlessly gobbling up the pages, begging "More, please!"
So that's all I'll say because I'm rambling. But if you want a book that makes you choke on your water (or whatever beverage of choice you have in your trembling hand), then this spooky tale is just the treat you're looking for.
Oh, also, just FYI: the last sentence is wild. Did not see that coming. Recommended By Briauna M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect" (Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author) as one family's past returns to haunt them and buried secrets threaten to come to light--from the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone. Be careful who you let in.
Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she's been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.
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. Everything in Libby's life is about to change. 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.
Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happy in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. But where?
"Intoxicating" (Entertainment Weekly) and filled with shocking twists, The Family Upstairs is "a haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read" (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author).
Synopsis
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA COVER TO COVER BOOK CLUB PICK
"Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect." --Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author
"A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read." --Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author
From the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family's past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.
Be careful who you let in.
Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she's been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.
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. Everything in Libby's life is about to change. 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.
Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.
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.
Synopsis
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA COVER TO COVER BOOK CLUB PICK "Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect." --Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author "A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read." --Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family's past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.Be careful who you let in. Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she's been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am. 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. Everything in Libby's life is about to change. 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. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. 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.