Publishers Weekly
06/27/2022
Bestseller Jewell’s lively sequel to 2019’s The Family Upstairs juggles three different story lines that eventually overlap. In 2019, Det. Insp. Samuel Owusu investigates skeletal remains in a black trash bag that have washed up on the bank of the Thames. In 2016, 30-ish Rachel Gold, a London-based jewelry designer, meets Michael Rimmer, with whom she has a whirlwind romance that ends with Michael’s murder in Antibes in 2018. The third plot strand focuses on creepy Henry Lamb; Henry’s sister, Lucy Lamb, who was once married to Michael; and Lucy’s daughter, Libby Jones, whose escape from their childhood “house of horrors” was the centerpiece of the previous book. Henry’s obsessive search for Finn Thomsen, a companion from his terrifying and traumatic youth, worries Lucy, who tracks Henry to Chicago, while Libby is intent on finding her biological father. By rapidly jumping around in time, Jewell effectively keeps readers off balance all the way to the happy ending. Though this tale of child abuse and mayhem works as a standalone, those who haven’t read The Family Upstairs will immediately want to rush out and do so. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"Other authors are at a ten out of ten, for me, and Lisa is a solid hundred." —GILLIAN McALLISTER, Sunday Times bestselling author of Wrong Place Wrong Time
USA Today
"The Family Remains does double duty—it's not just a satisfying sequel to the author's best selling 2019 novel The Family Upstairs, but a solid standalone tale of mystery and suspense...The page-turner will sate fans and win over new readers alike."
Buzzfeed
This intricate, multilayered tale is a haunting realization of the lengths people will go to protect the ones they love and uncover the truth. With its superb pacing, twisted characters, and captivating prose, Jewell’s latest is one readers will devour with ease!
Library Journal
03/01/2022
When Rachel Rimmer's husband, Michael, is found murdered at his home in France, the police blame his gangster connections. But Rachel blames Lucy, Michael's former wife, the last person to see him alive and living heedlessly in London with her children. Now Rachel is after her. From the No. 1 New York Times best-selling author; with a 250,000-copy first printing.
OCTOBER 2022 - AudioFile
Bea Holland, Dominic Thorburn, Hugh Quarshie, Eleanor Tomlinson, Josh Dylan, and Thomas Judd create timeless characters as they narrate this intricate story about childhood trauma and its repercussions. The discovery of a decades-old body forces the characters to unearth secrets while desperately protecting family members from them. Portraying siblings, Holland and Thorburn transition seamlessly between British and American accents. Quarshie injects a detective with credible practicality and skepticism. Dylan infuses his tween character with wisdom and clarity. Tomlinson embodies her character with emotion that ranges from the giddiness of new love to the terror and rage of betrayal. Judd takes us from mystery to resolution with his character. Working well together, these narrators will make listeners thankful they have merely average lives. L.M.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2022-05-11
In this sequel to The Family Upstairs (2019), two siblings continue to deal with the fallout of their traumatic childhoods.
Lucy Lamb is living with her brother, Henry, after the two have been reunited, and she’s focused on reconnecting with her eldest daughter, Libby, and building a more stable life for her younger kids. But when Libby locates her birth father, Phin Thomsen, who lived as a teenager with Lucy and Henry—all their parents were part of a cult led by Phin’s father and 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 all communication, prompting deep concern in Lucy, who knows of Henry’s dangerous obsession with Phin (which goes so deep that Henry has fashioned himself to look like Phin). Meanwhile, human remains have been found in the Thames and traced to the childhood home Libby inherited, which leaves all three wanted for police questioning when it is determined the victim lived with Henry, Lucy, and Libby in their childhood home and was murdered. Separately, an unrelated character named Rachel Rimmer remembers her disastrous marriage when she is contacted about her abusive husband’s murder. In this latest thriller, Jewell dives back into the psyche of Henry Lamb, one of her most unsettling characters. She attempts to weave together four narratives but takes too long to develop connections among the disparate stories (especially Rachel’s), which means the novel is weighted down with unrelated murder victims and minor characters, both of which detract from the suspense of Henry’s pursuit of Phin.
An unevenly paced thriller that fails to match its predecessor’s level of intensity.
