The Family Upstairs is Captivating, it’s Real, it’s Raw and, at times, it’s Un-nerving.

One House.

Two Families.

Three Bodies.

Can you ever really run from your past?

Thrillers haven’t been my go-to genre for a while. I spent much of my younger years submersed in the tantalising nature of these types of stories, but lately my mind has needed the comfort of my chick-lit indulgences.

The Family Upstairs has sat on my bookshelf for nearly a year and, if I am going to be plainly honest, I hadn’t even read the blurb until a few weeks ago. This novel has been pontificated about all over Bookstagram for what seems like forever. It has been hailed as the thriller of the year and ‘un-putdownable’. So, with some slight reverence (we know my aversion to overly hyped literature . . .) I plucked it off my shelves and started to read.

Libby is a ‘normal’ twenty-five-year-old kitchen designer who has just inherited a multimillion-pound gothic mansion in Chelsea from the birth parents she never knew. The same parents who died in mysterious circumstances alongside another unknown, man. Libby becomes obsessed with the details surrounding the death and the more she learns, the stranger and darker the secrets of her past become.

Like many of the books I have been reading lately, the narrative is split between three characters, Libby, Henry and Lucy. All inextricably linked, but how, we know not. Although the narrative changes chapter by chapter, the story does not suffer for this, in fact, Jewell’s writing is electric. I did not once find myself racing through one character to get to another. Their individual stories and Jewell’s world building are excellent. The character of Henry particularly intrigued me, there was darkness to his personality from the outset and he didn’t once disappoint.

As details of their shared past comes to light, we learn that 25 years previously the police were anonymously called to 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Upon arrival, they found 3 dead bodies in the kitchen alongside a hastily scribbled note. Upstairs, a baby, swaddled in a cot. The other four children of the household, gone.

I won’t lie, I loved it. I loved it from the first page right until the last, I swear at times I may have stopped breathing momentarily, only to be jolted back to reality with the change of character narrative. The writing is both pacey and sedate where it needs to be, it leaves you wanting more. I was forever asking the questions that all great thrillers ensue - Who? What? Where? Why?

The intricacy of Jewel’s writing is just magnificent. Her characters are gorgeous and different and unique. Libby, the twenty-something we can all relate to. Lucy, the desperate single-mother; clever, calculating and sharp as a tack. Henry, dark, complex and un-readable. The prose is intense, it’s the kind of book you never want to put down. I was reading it, stood-up, whilst cooking.

The Family Upstairs is a book for everyone. It’s the book you ignore cocktail hour for while on holiday because you are just so engrossed. It leaves you with a million questions. It leaves your heart aching for more. This book is captivating, it’s real, it’s raw and, at times, it’s un-nerving. The subtle mix of personalities within the characters is just addictive, the writing is exquisite and Jewell writes thriller like its etched in her very bones.

The Family Upstairs gave me the book hangover from which I never want to recover.

Read it, you’ll love it.

Katie D xx