BOOK REVIEW: The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

In a large house in London’s fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot.In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses.They’ve been dead for several days. Who has been looking after the baby?And where did they go?

Publisher: Century

Pages: 451

Lisa Jewell was one of my favourite authors when I was younger, I would buy her new books immediately and they are still on my bookshelves to this day. When she switched genre to psychological thrillers I really wasn’t sure if I should read them. However, the lovely people at Century kindly sent me The Family Upstairs and I couldn’t resist. The problem is that it is fantastic so now I am going to have to buy all her other thrillers. 

The book focuses on Libby Jones, on her 25th birthday she discovers that she has inherited a mansion in Chelsea. She then discovers that her birth parents bodies were discovered there. She was alive and well in her cot upstairs but her older brother and sister had vanished. 

Libby’s life has changed forever, she can sell the house and bank a huge amount of money but what she really wants is the truth. What happened to her parents? Who looked after her for the few days before the police discovered the decomposing bodies?

The Family Upstairs is a fantastic thriller, I could not put it down and flew through the pages. I do enjoy this genre but I sometimes find the characters a bit flat. However, Lisa Jewell delivers believable and interesting characters, they are not merely there to move the plot along. 

Jewell packs a lot in, deception, cults, domestic abuse, sexuality, growing up, religion, love and so much more. At first the events in the book seem a little far-fetched but Jewell flits between the past and the presents, gradually showing how the situation got out of control in a terrifyingly easy manner. 

Jewell keeps you in suspense for the majority of the book, there are so many brilliant twists and turns. I had to re-read one chapter more than once as I really didn't predict the plot twist coming and I love it when an author is able to shock you in that way.

This is one of the best books I have read this year, go and get a copy.

Many thanks to Century for kindly gifting me a copy of the book to review. 

BOOK REVIEW: The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell

When a tragedy breaks a family apart, what can bring it together?
The Birds seem to be a perfect family: mother, father, four children, a picture-book cottage in the country.
But when something happens one Easter weekend, it is so unexpected, so devastating that no one can talk about it.
The family shatters, seemingly forever.
Until they are forced to return to the house they grew up in. And to confront what really took place all those years ago. 

Publisher: Atria Books

My lovely friend Kim at Still Reading recommended  this book to me and she had no idea that I was a huge Lisa Jewell fan. This book for me was both heartbreaking and mesmerising. Lisa Jewell weaves a story that is very difficult to read at times but the characters were so compelling and realistic that I couldn't put it down.
The Bird family has Loreli as its matriarch and she has always been a little eccentric and a compulsive hoarder. When tragedy strikes the Bird family, Loreli's eccentricities go into overdrive until there is literally no room in the house for anyone but her. She has built new walls and corridors from the items she has hoarded. The image of this ethereal woman all alone, estranged from her family is utterly devastating. Lisa Jewell shows the reader how the situation has arisen and how family secrets can have truly awful consequences.
The book is mainly told from the children's points of view and jumps back and forth between the past and present. Megan, Beth,, Rory and Rhys were close as young children, all connected by their mother, yet they are virtually strangers now; almost driven away by the woman who gave life to them.
The hoarding aspect of the book was fascinating; I have watched several programmes about this obsession and I felt that Lisa Jewell showed the devastation it can cause and the many reasons behind it. The fact that Loreli's house is a beautiful cottage in the Cotswolds almost compounds the damage. Through her hoarding she gradually loses the only thing she has left, her beautiful home, the last member of her family.
The House We Grew Up In is a thought-provoking and poignant read. I felt as though it was a lot darker than Lisa Jewell's previous books. It felt a little more grown up and personally I am a big fan of this new direction in her writing.
I can't recommend this book enough but you will definitely need to set aside some time as you won't be able to put it down.

Many thanks to Atria Books for allowing me to read a review copy via Netgalley.

Book Review: The Making Of Us by Lisa Jewell

In a hospice in Bury St Edmunds, a man called Daniel is slowly fading away. His friend Maggie sits with him everyday; she holds his hand and she listens to the story of his life, to his regrets and to his secrets. And then he tells her about the children he has never met and never will, conceived with women he never even touched. Four of them, apparently, two boys, two girls. His legacy, he calls them.

Lydia, Robyn and Dean don't know each other. Yet. And they are all facing difficult challenges. Lydia is still wearing the scars from her traumatic childhood and although she is wealthy and successful, her life is lonely and disjointed. Dean is a young man whose life is going nowhere. Robyn is training to be a doctor, just like her father- a man she's never met. When she falls in love with a man who is like her in every way, she needs to be sure. It's time for her to open the envelope her mother gave her on her eighteenth birthday.

And Daniel's children slowly find their way into each other's lives...

I am a huge Lisa Jewell fan and have loved all of her books so you can imagine how excited I was to receive a review copy of her latest one. I was a little worried when it arrived though as it had a quote on the back from The Bookseller saying that Lisa Jewell had moved into David Nicholl's territory. Don't get me wrong, I loved One Day by David Nicholls but I feel that Lisa Jewell has a very particular writing style and I was worried that this would have disappeared. I shouldn't have got so stressed though as this book is fabulous and the writer's poignant and witty style was better than ever.
The idea behind the book is just brilliant and Lisa Jewell showed how much research she had done by it all being completely believable and realistic.
I fell in love with all of the characters, Daniel, Lydia, Dean and Robyn. It was almost like getting four books for the price of one as they all have their own stories and backgrounds and I loved getting to know them all.
Lydia is extremely successful and still very young. She is adapting to the new wealth and lifestyle that her success has given her but she still has many questions from the past. She receives an envelope from an anonymous sender and learns that her father was a sperm donor rather than the man who had brought her up. Rather than feeling anger or sadness, it seems that Lydia is almost relieved as it makes certain parts of her past make sense, almost like a weight has been lifted.
Dean is younger than Lydia and has known the true identity of his father for three years. His life is all over the place and he is pushing away everybody that cares for him. A tiny part of him wonders what his siblings are like, are they in as much of a mess as him or would they hold some answers to him sorting his life out?
Robyn is the youngest at 18 and has always know about her father. She is training to be a doctor, the same as her father. On her eighteenth, Robyn's loving parents give her all the information she needs to make contact with her siblings and her real father. At first she is reluctant but then she realises the importance of meeting these people; by knowing them then maybe she will understand a little more about herself.
Daniel is the man who ties these children together, a man they have never met and a man who is running out of time. After revealing his life-long secret to his new friend Maggie, she sets out to find his children and bring them to him before it is too late.
The Making Of Us is a beautiful, poignant book. As I said, I fell in love with each character and only wanted the best for them all. Lisa Jewell has the incredible knack of telling it like it is, she does not give you a happy ending just for the sake of it. The way in which she brought the characters together was brilliant and very realistic. I was really moved by the individual stories of the characters and the ways in which they fitted together as though they had always felt that something was missing.
I urge you to read The Making Of Us and any of Lisa Jewell's other books. She is a fantastic author whose writing I never tire of.

Many thanks to Century for sending me a copy of the book to review, The Making Of Us is published on May 12th.

If you want to find out more about Lisa Jewell then head over to her facebook page by clicking here.

Book Review: After the Party by Lisa Jewell

I am a huge Lisa Jewell fan and have read all of her books so you can imagine how happy I was to discover that she was writing a sequel to her best-seller, Ralph's Party.
After the Party joins Ralph and Jem eleven years after they got together. Everyone who knows them looks on their relationship as perfect and everlasting. However, Ralph and Jem now have two young children, a house in suburbia and fond memories of the care-free existence they once had. Ralph still loves Jem but he knows he is no longer her priority and Jem is beginning to wonder who she is outside of her 'mother' role. So they are both struggling to get back to each other and secure the future they believed they would always have.
Out of all of Lisa Jewell's books, I think this one is the darkest. I found this really refreshing; she strips back Jem and Ralph's relationship and shows the problems they are experiencing. The story is written from both of their perspectives as they try to make sense of what is going wrong.
There were certain points in the book where I disliked both Jem and Ralph but again I think that this emphasises how real relationships work. Couples do annoy each other and row; you have to make the decision as to whether the love you feel for the other person is worth putting up with their negative traits.
As usual, I was totally absorbed in Lisa Jewell's writing style and the story she was telling. It is quite a long book but I was swept along with it and had finished in two days. If you have already read Ralph's Party then great but it is not a necessity. Lisa Jewell provides enough information for the reader to understand Ralph and Jem's past without being bored by it. I could not recommend this book enough, it is a realistic take on modern relationships without the sugar coating that some authors seem to go for.

The truth about Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell

I love Lisa Jewell's books so I was so excited when I heard that she had a new one coming out this year. I finally got round to reading it this weekend and it was fantastic. The premise of the book is quite simple really; Melody Browne's house burnt down when she was just nine years old, taking all of her possessions but also all of her memories before the age of nine. We meet Melody Browne when she is in her early thirties; she's a single mum living in Covent Garden, just about to celebrate her son's 18th birthday. We learn that she left home at 15 as her parents were not too impressed with her pregnancy and she has not seen them since then. In just the first few chapters, Melody has a chance encounter with a very lovely man on the bus and is persuaded to go on her first date in years. Ben takes her to see the famous hypnotist, Julius Sardo who asks Melody to take part in his act, during which she falls and hits her head. When she comes round she feels different in some way and can remember small details from her childhood. This continues and she has to start piecing all these pieces together in order to find out who she was. We follow Melody Browne on her exciting journey; just as she gets answers to one question, more pop up in it's place.
I don't want to go into too much detail as it would be far too easy to give the plot away and I know that my lovely sister for one is still reading it! I will just say that Lisa Jewell has yet again written such a brilliant story. I instantly warmed to the character of Melody in the first few pages and wanted more than anything for her to find the answers that she needed to be happy. The book has a really good pace, I didn't want to put it down and I enjoyed every twist and turn that Lisa Jewell created.

Booking Through Thursday: A Second First Time

What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?

I love this week's question as I have never really thought about this! I am probably going to sound a bit obsessive now as I go on about it so much but I would love to read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier again for the first time as it really is my favourite book plus it introduced me to a fantastic writer whose work I am still reading and enjoying today.
I would also have to say Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, I had such a brilliant teacher at school for this who gave me a real love for Austen. I fell in love with this book the first time that I read it, I think that Elizabeth Bennett is one of the greatest literary characters created (Mr Rochester is not bad either).
Arrgggh there's so many books that I would love to read again for the first time, I have to mention Ralph's Party by Lisa Jewell too. Again this is because it introduced me to such a good writer, Lisa Jewell is often categorised as a chick lit writer and I can see that but for me personally, she just has the edge over other writers in that genre. I have read all her books and she is an author who truly inspires me to write myself.

A Friend of the Family by Lisa Jewell

I am a BIG Lisa Jewell fan but somehow managed to miss this one so borrowed it from my local library. As with all her other books, I absolutely loved it; it's like sitting down with an old friend for a chat and a cup of tea.
The three central characters, Tony, Sean and Ned are brothers and are all at very different stages in their lives. They have fantastic parents, so they do not question their mother when she installs Gervase, the new lodger, into their family home. Gervase is a brilliant character; Lisa Jewell describes his unsavoury appearance and mannerisms so well that you are not surprised that the brothers do not warm to him instantly. However, this man has a huge impact on all of their lives and the reader is left wondering who he is and where he came from. I thought he was a bit of a fairy-tale character but he has enough substance to still remain believable.
I think that Lisa Jewell writes incredibly well considering that she is writing from not just one, but three male perspectives. It is a very witty book but with just the right amount of poignant moments. I think that she is such a good author, I hope she has a new book out soon!

The sun is shining!

Morning everyone! I am in a pretty good mood today, mainly becuase the sun is shining and there is not a grey cloud in sight; it's amazing how much difference the weather makes to your mood isn't it? I have had a really good weekend, Mr S and I went back to Birmingham to organise some wedding stuff! Had the first fitting for my dress which was exciting, I was just relieved that I still liked it when I put it on again as I am not the most decisive of people! Also got my engagement ring back which I am pleased about. The jewellers had had it for nearly a month so they could make me a wedding ring to fit and there have been several occasions where I have forgotten and panicked that it has fallen off and been lost forever! Went to visit one of my bridesmaids who has broken her knee, she is nearly mobile enough to try dresses on so that is good; we tested her mobility by getting her in the car and going for cake- there didn't seem to be too many problems!
I gave up with the Beatrix Potter biography, it was really good but I think I need something a bit more relaxed to read at the moment so I have started Lisa Jewell's book A Friend of the Family. I love Lisa Jewell and every time I read one of her books it spurs me on with my own writing which is exactly what I need at the moment. She has a lovely website with loads of tips and ideas for budding writers plus the story of her long journey to becoming a published author, she seems like a very lovely lady!