Libby is about to turn 25. She’s thinking about finding the right man, taking the next step in her career, making her limited amount of savings last. Adopted at a young age, she always knew she’d be getting some sort of inheritance from her birth parents on her 25th birthday but figured it might be something small and sentimental, if even that.
She’s shocked to discover she’s inherited a house—no, a once-grand mansion. More than that, she’s shocked to find what appears to be the truth about what happened to her parents, that they were part of some mysterious suicide ritual and she was found in the house by police. No one was ever able to figure out exactly what caused her parents to kill themselves, and where the rest of the people living in the house went.
Meanwhile, a woman who has been down on her luck for quite a while, living on the streets with her children, depending upon the kindness of strangers and playing her fiddle for money, gets a text message that says, "The baby is 25." What is behind this text that motivates her to put a plan in motion to get her and her family to London?
In a third narration, a boy some 20 years earlier watches his family and his life fall apart with the arrival of strange visitors who bring many bizarre changes to the household, and they leave utter chaos in their wake. They also awaken a range of emotions in the boy.
These three narratives combine as Libby, with the help of a reporter, tries to come to terms with her tragic history, and figure out what happened the night her parents died. She truly can't fathom that she's inherited such a large house, and she also could have sworn that someone was in the house one night when she was looking around. But who could it be?
I’m being mostly vague with my plot summary because while not everything was surprising to me, Jewell throws in lots of twists and turns, and it's much better to let the plot unfold at your speed. I thought the book started really slowly and toyed with putting it down, but once I got a little bit further in it picked up steam and then I couldn’t put it down.
I like when a book is told in multiple perspectives but there are a lot of characters to keep straight. More than a few times I had to stop and remember which character was which. But in the end, The Family Upstairs is a creepy yet altogether believable story that would make an interesting and compelling movie, and Jewell is a skilled storyteller.
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