The Family Remains

First off, I just want to say that this book is BRILLIANT! Buy it! If you haven't read The Family Upstairs first then you absolutely should but you can read The Family Remains as a standalone. What you need to know from the first book is recapped but I did go looking for some spoilers online as a reminder.

The book begins with a bag of bones being found on the banks of the Thames by a mud-larker. The bones lead DI Samuel Owusu to link it to the house in Chelsea where people died and a baby was found, alone upstairs. We follow a brother and sister as the past catches up with them, and a young woman who finds herself in a difficult relationship. I don't think I can say much more about the story because it unfolds so perfectly with only show more those bare bones as a synopsis that to go into more detail would be a shame.

I've always loved Lisa Jewell's books and I think The Family Remains is definitely one of my favourites. It's expertly plotted and brilliantly complex, with tangled family relationships being at the heart of the story, and yet that complexity doesn't mean it's hard to follow. I think because the writing and the story are so good I was just happy to let it lead me wherever it wanted to take me, and what an incredibly twisty journey that was.

This book is very much character-driven and they truly are fantastic creations, so absolutely compelling that I didn't want to take my eyes off the page. This is a domestic thriller from the queen of dark mystery that absolutely gripped me, with short chapters that kept up a fast pace and a fabulous story with a really clever ending that made me smile. I absolutely loved it. show less

This is a sequel to The Family Upstairs, which I really enjoyed. In this one the story seems to be very unevenly paced making it have less intensity than the first book. Lucy Lamb is living with her brother, Henry. Lucy is focused on reconnecting with her eldest daughter, Libby, and hopes to build a more stable life for her younger kids. Then Libby locates her birth father, Phin Thomsen, who lived as a teenager with Lucy and Henry. All the parents were part of a cult led by Phin’s father and all died together in a suicide pact. The family begins making plans to go visit him in Botswana until word comes that Phin has taken a leave of absence from his job. After tracing Phin to Chicago, Henry leaves abruptly to go find him and cuts off show more all communication, prompting concern for Lucy, who knows of Henry’s dangerous obsession with Phin. Confused yet??? I was. This obsession was more than a bit overboard and scary. Henry has taken it so far as to start to make himself look like Phin. Then human remains are found in the Thames and traced to the childhood home that Libby inherited. Now everyone is wanted for questioning by the police because it has been determined that the victim lived with Henry, Lucy, and Libby in their childhood home and was the victim of murdered. Then we have a totally unrelated character... Rachel Rimmer, who remembers her disastrous marriage but only when she is contacted about her abusive husband’s murder. By now I am a lot confused but still reading. I think that the author has attempted to join together four separate narratives, but it takes way too long to develop connections among the stories...especially Rachel’s. This weights the story down with the unrelated murder victims and so many minor characters. This could almost have been two separate books. I'm not sure how much anyone will get from this one without first being familiar with the first book. show less

Although, in "The Family Remains," the sequel to "The Family Upstairs," Lisa Jewell fills us in on past events, readers who are unfamiliar with the first novel may find this follow-up a bit mystifying. More than twenty-five years earlier, Henry Lamb and his sister Lucy lived with their parents in a house on Cheyne Walk in London. Two of the six people who subsequently moved into the Lambs' home—David Thomsen, a self-described healer, and Birdie Dunlop-Evers, a musician—proceeded to exert financial, physical, and psychological control over the Lamb family. This disastrous situation culminated in four deaths, the birth of a baby, and the escape of Henry and Lucy, who were in their teens and deeply scarred by all that they had show more endured.

Jewell is a talented storyteller who evokes sympathy for some—but not all—of her complex characters. The dialogue is lively, the action moves along at a brisk pace, and plot is suspenseful enough to make us wonder how all of the elements will ultimately come together. Jewell writes in the third person, except in the case of Henry and Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu, who speak directly to us. It is unclear why the author made the choice to switch back and forth from first to third person, since doing so disrupts the book's narrative flow.

"The Family Remains" will appeal to those who enjoy morbid and dark thrillers with unsettling themes, including suicide, theft, spousal abuse, and murder. When the dust settles, the survivors attempt to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Not everyone winds up dead or demented, but it is clear that, after having gone through hell, the protagonists will likely never be completely whole again. show less

I didn't even know there was going to be a follow up to the Family Upstairs so I was extra excited to read this. Not as twisty as the first book, but a very solid follow up. I also appreciated that a lot was summarized from the first book because it has been a while since I read it - the summaries and the intrigue did help me remember everything I needed to know though to follow this story. Libby and her boyfriend have tracked down Phin - he's working on a game preserve in Botswana and she is desperate to meet her dad. Uncle Henry will also be tagging along - he's never stopped thinking about Phin and wants to see him again desperately. Before they can go on their vacation though - Phin disappears. Did he know they were going to show more surprise him? What went wrong? Henry also "disappears" to try and pick up the breadcrumbs that Phin has left behind leaving behind a very worried sister. At the same time, a bag of bones is found in the river Thames and they are identified as Birdies, but will anyone be able to tie it back to the Lamb family? Told through multiple perspectives, this book is an intriguing and satisfying follow up to the first. show less

A cleverly crafted, tense, and twisty tale.

Jumping timelines and person points of view adds mystery for the reader puzzling to piece together the events of the past. We are drip-fed information making this story a nail-biting and suspenseful read.

This is the first time I've found myself with all fingers crossed that a killer would get away with it and that 'bad things would happen to bad people.'

I got completely immersed in this book as soon as I opened it. I connected with all of the characters and I just had to find out what happened next. Phin was the only character who was an enigma to me. Even though I was apprehensive about what Henry would do I eagerly followed the breadcrumb trail along with him to unravel the riddle of Phin.
The show more author ties events and people together very inventively. Rachel's story, in particular, concludes in a very satisfying way as does the police inspector's investigation into Birdie's murder.
This book works brilliantly as a standalone. It's easy to follow and the snappy chapters make it a quick read. show less

Best for:
People who enjoyed the first book.

In a nutshell:
The remains of someone who died 25 years ago have been found. Also, the remains of someone who died just a few days ago.

Worth quoting:
N/A (Audio book)

Why I chose it:
I enjoyed the first book in this series.

What it left me feeling:
Ambivalent

Review:
Spoilers abound, especially for the previous book (The Family Upstairs). CN: Sexual assault, emotional abuse, stalking.

This book picks up where the last one leaves off, and while I can talk about the plot, this review is going to talk a bit more about the descriptions of some of the relationships. The plot itself continues the same multi-person narrative as the last book, but there are added characters, including the wife of someone show more murdered by an ex-wife in the first book. And that’s the storyline that was the most challenging. I’d imagine it was hard to write, but it was also really hard to read.

I’ve not read gas lighting written so well before. I was infuriated. I wanted to skip those parts but I also knew I needed to not, because it was important that the character experiencing the abuse had her story heard. How the husband love bombs the new wife, then on his honeymoon, gets offended by her suggestion of a sexual fantasy, and turns on a dime. Then completely pretends that things didn’t happen the way they did, turning everything into her part. And once she finally extracts herself from him, whenever she sees him in public, he acts like they’re still great friends and nothing could possibly have ever happened as she described.

In the previous book, we know that the husband ends up murdered by a previous ex wife. And it is one of the more satisfying outcomes, and makes it slightly less horrible to hear about his past knowing what happens to him in the future. But still. Really hard to read.

I do care about the characters (well, most of them heh), and I think Jewell has done a good job in making the women out to be fairly full characters. The others …maybe not as much, but still, enough for me to care about them.

The other story lines aren’t quite as compelling, though there are a couple of twists and turns. Unlike the previous book, though, we know nearly everything that is going to happen, and the twists that do happen feel a bit more out there than in the previous book. I am glad I read it, but just didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it show less

I didn't know there was a sequel til I updated GoodReads for the first book, and of course I was intrigued enough to get it from the library. It tells what happened to everybody afterwards, with some prequel stuff to flesh out certain characters. It didn't add a lot and certainly didn't explain why / how the most psychotic character got that way, beyond all the stuff that happened in the first book.

She says she wrote it because of fans writing to ask what happened next, which makes me roll my eyes. I can't blame her for that, but it feels different from if the characters kept coming back to her and wanting her to tell their story. Plus it kind of leaves the door open for the further adventures of the psycho.