The Family Remains: A Novel

DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene and quickly sends the bag for forensic examination. The bones are those of a young woman, killed by a blow to the head many years ago. Also inside the bag is a trail of clues which lead DCI Owusu back to a mansion in Chelsea where, nearly thirty years previously, three people lay dead in a kitchen, and a baby waited upstairs for someone to pick her up. The clues point forward too to a brother and sister in Chicago searching for the only person who can make sense of their pasts. Really enjoyable read totally recommend

I absolutely loved The Family Upstairs so when I heard about The Family Remains I was so excited to read the sequel! This sequel is everything I could have wished for and more after being left wanting to learn more about the characters in The Family Upstairs! This was such an engrossing, suspenseful read I found it hard to put down as the story really pulls you in and keeps you interested! Lisa Jewell is one of my favourite authors and I’ve loved every book I’ve read by her and this one certainly did not disappoint in living up to the skills of Lisa’s writing! Henry is such an interesting character, I really enjoyed finding out more about what goes on inside his head. I found it fascinating finding out how the lives of the characters had changed now they are adults, in my opinion this was a fantastic sequel! There is so much more I want to say about this book but I don’t want to give too much away for those who haven’t read this one yet! I would recommend this book if you love a twisty thriller where you’re never quite sure what to expect next! 5/5 ⭐️

Rating: 3.4/5 I thoroughly enjoyed "The Family Upstairs" and gave it a 5-star review, which is something of a rarity for me. Given the success that it achieved, both creatively and commercially, there was always likely to be the temptation to produce a sequel at some point. History has shown that bringing out a sequel to a novel that was originally intended as a standalone is not always a good idea - so I went into this one hoping for the best, but prepared for the worst. The result was actually somewhere in between. Firstly, I would like to address whether "The Family Remains" could happily be read by someone who is not already familiar with the first book. Well, Lisa Jewell does show an element of consideration for her readers by giving some brief background on key characters at the beginning of the book. She also uses one of the early chapters (written from Henry's perspective) to provide background information from book one. That said, I think this works better as a refresher for people who have actually read the first book rather than enabling completely new readers to be fully up to speed. The novel itself delivers much of what you might expect from Lisa Jewell: The writing is fluent, engaging and draws the reader in with the author's usual page-turning style. The characterisation is, as ever, impressive with the key protagonists being well-drawn, if not always likeable. The pace is good throughout and the plot has been carefully constructed, without glaring plot holes or stretching credulity too far beyond the acceptable boundaries of dramatic fiction. And yet, in spite of all that, there is something missing when compared with "The Family Upstairs" ... It doesn't have quite the same sense of originality, intrigue or menace - and, as a result, it is less impactful than its predecessor. If "The Family Upstairs" was to your liking, I would expect you to enjoy this too - but probably not quite as much. If you didn't like "The Family Upstairs", then I very much doubt you will enjoy this either. And if you haven't read "The Family Upstairs", I would suggest that you do so before reading this, as I don't think you will derive the maximum amount of satisfaction from "The Family Remains" otherwise.

Lisa Jewell is traditionally one of my must-read authors, and I've devoured most of her work during the course of the last five years. When I read The Family Upstairs, I knew she was a solid thriller writer, and I hadn't suspected there would be a sequel. It didn't necessarily need one, but the vivid characters and partially unresolved moments from the book demanded to be revisited. In this second of the series, which is likely not to have a third I suspect, we see some of our favorites and learn more about a few we hadn't known all that well in the first book. The Lamb family is not without its faults, and they blur the line of good and bad. None are outright devils, and they have all suffered to the extremes; however, the need for vengeance and their obsessions with people from the past can push them into complex territory. Jewell conjured a terrific plot, one with a bit of a history not-so-much re-writing as much as a filling-in-blanks that pushed the envelope on believability. That said, it is compelling and easily pulls readers into the drama by the fourth or fifth chapter. If you haven't read the debut, I suggest rereading it again immediately before tackling the sequel... not because it's necessary but it really helps you remember the specific character flaws and actions that happened 25 years earlier. Jewell catches you up on most of the pertinent points, yet reading back-to-back is probably ideal to experience the shock value we deserve. It was mostly clear where the plot was going from the beginning, and it's easy to forgive this family for the things they do wrong... at the same time, the overarching theme needed a little more gut-punch and possibly another side story to really make it a 5-star shine. Definitely a must-read for anyone who enjoyed the first book.

EXCERPT: We follow her to the bottom of the garden, just past a tree with a circular bench built around it. Here there is a tall wall, grown over entirely with a thick ropey lilac. Another forensic investigator is crouched down over a flower bed, pulling items from the soil on to a sheet of plastic. My stomach lurches with shock and I hear Donal gasp. Bones. Small white bones. ABOUT 'THE FAMILY REMAINS': 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. MY THOUGHTS: I am so grateful to Lisa Jewell for overcoming her dislike of writing sequels and penning The Family Remains. I admit to being underwhelmed by The Family Upstairs, but The Family Remains has cast it in another light, and I am sorely tempted to reread it to see if I now feel any differently about it now. The story is told from the points of view of several different characters, and we, the readers, are assisted by the inclusion of a list of the major characters and their relationship to one another. Which is just as well as some of the characters have more than one identity. Lisa Jewell has written a spellbinding conclusion to her family drama that is surprisingly tense in places, leaving me holding my breath, heart pounding. The characters are complex, as we expect them to be; the plot twisty and compelling; the denouement just perfect. ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 THE AUTHOR: Lisa was born in London in 1968. Her mother was a secretary and her father was a textile agent and she was brought up in the northernmost reaches of London with her two younger sisters. She was educated at a Catholic girls’ Grammar school in Finchley. After leaving school at sixteen she spent two years at Barnet College doing an arts foundation course and then two years at Epsom School of Art & Design studying Fashion Illustration and Communication. She worked for the fashi...