The Family Remains By Lisa Jewell

‘The Family Remains’ is the sequel to Lisa Jewell’s international bestseller, ‘The Family Upstairs’.

LONDON. Early morning, June 2019: on the foreshore of the river Thames, a bag of bones is discovered. Human bones. 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, in particular the seeds of a rare tree 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. Four deaths. An unsolved mystery. A family whose secrets can’t stay buried for ever.

2022 has seen Lisa Jewell return with the long anticipated sequel to ‘The Family Upstairs’ and I spent my Saturday absorbed in this story.

The story continues on from ‘The Family Upstairs’ and it was a fascinating to return to some of the characters and join them on their journey. The story flows from 2016 and 2019 and is seen from multiple narratives including the wonderfully eccentric Henry Lamb, who has a new obsession and travels to America to find Phineas Thomsen whilst his sister Rachel is trying to stop him before he does something he regrets. Meanwhile DCI Samuel Owusu is trying to find out the identity of a bag of bones and find himself learning the history of a Chelsea mansion and its dark history.

Lisa has such a fantastic knack of creating immersing books with flawed characters that you instantly connect with and with her latest book there’s a deeper exploration in the Lamb and Thomsen families and some unanswered questions are answered.

The various narratives helped give a further insight into the characters and see how their lives have progressed. I adored Henry, he’s an absolute enigma with his eccentric way of living and how he can justify his irrational behaviour.

This book was one of the most eagerly awaited sequels and Lisa has certainly delivered with this story.

With cleverly weaved stories and narratives coming together seamlessly at the end, ‘The Family Remains’ is overflowing with suspense and psychological drama packed with twists that made this book impossible to put down!

You can buy ‘The Family Remains’ from Amazon and other good bookshops.