The Family Remains A Novel

Lisa Jewell — 2022

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 “brilliantly chilling” (Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author) 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.

Reviews

Rebecca Hurd@becca2bz

Jul 16, 2024

Such a good read!! Definitely better than the first book in my opinion. It was a lot easier to follow and not as confusing!! Plus the ending was everything, this book really let you go into the mind of Henry and figure out how he thinks and why he is the way he is!! Love it!!

Cortni Bell@cortni

Apr 16, 2024

DNF I like the Family upstairs. I like most of her books but I could not get through this at all. Maybe I’ll come back to it later

Jenny Engel@jennifer975

Mar 7, 2024

Faster paced than the 1st book

nuha ✨️@nuhasahir

Feb 4, 2024

There are three main POVs in this book - detective Samuel, Rachel and the Lamb siblings. These three POVs are from different months.

It was difficult to be interested in the Lamb siblings’ POVs in the beginning. I was looking forward to Rachel’s and detective Samuel’s POVs. But about halfway through the book, the pace picked up and I couldn’t put the book down.

The plot is fairly straightforward. Not a lot of twists or turns. And I am usually not a huge fan of different timeline POV books. But this book was good because the POVs were only months/weeks apart, so it was pretty action packed.

Payten Bovat@paytenbovat

Apr 2, 2023

This book was super disappointing. Nowhere near as good as the first. The whole finding Phinn storyline was the most anticlimactic thing EVER. That was the entire premise of the book and it was such a let down and didn’t even make sense/fit with how the characters acted. The only person’s storyline I liked was Rachel’s, everything else felt like a waste of time and unnecessary.

This review contains a spoiler

Dip@serendiptii

Aug 27, 2022

ANTI CLIMACTIC

This could have been a novella.

It could've avoided so many details that the first book delved into.

I did not remember any of the characters from the first book cuz I flew through it. But this book probably served as a recap session of the first book with a random woman's POV (Rachel, who has ties with Michael and Lucy), a random detective's POV whose chapters I almost skipped and a murder of an evil woman I did not even care about.

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD CUZ I NEED TO RANT!!!

SERIOUSLY, DON'T GO AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS.

I AM WARNING YOU.

ok hi, welcome to my rant session.

The previous book ended with them finding about Finn but this novel was about Henry creepily stalking Finn only to have his presence for barely 4 pages. I do not know anything more about Finn that I didn't know from the previous book.

I really wish I cared about the Samuel chapters, but Birdie was such an uninteresting character and we already knew her secrets from the previous book so there was nothing much to be revealed.

Rachel's POV serves as a backstory to Lucy and her previous life, including how she killed Michael in the climax of Book #1. The whole POV was to convey that Lucy knew, she protected her and Lucy is finally free.

The Phin-Henry reunion was the most dissatisfying thing ever; so much build-up and for what?

And what the crap was that ending? Henry is STILL creepy after claiming "Chicago <i> HEALED </i> me" and ends up impersonating the only dude he met on his trip???