The Family Remains: A Novel

by Lisa Jewell

Overview

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Other authors are at a ten out of ten, for me, and Lisa is a solid hundred.” —Gillian McAllister, The Sunday Times (London) bestselling author of Wrong Place Wrong Time

The #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell weaves a “simply masterful” (Samantha Downing, internationally bestselling author) thriller about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this standalone sequel to The Family Upstairs.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller The Family Upstairs, “Lisa Jewell is a superb writer at the top of her game” (Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author) with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982178901
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	06/06/2023
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	20,139
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lisa Jewell is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen novels, including The Family Upstairs and Then She Was Gone, as well as Invisible Girl and Watching You. Her novels have sold over 10 million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into twenty-nine languages. Connect with her on Twitter @LisaJewellUK, on Instagram @LisaJewellUK, and on Facebook @LisaJewellOfficial.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One JULY 2018

Groggy with sleep, Rachel peered at the screen of her phone. A French number. The phone slipped from her hand onto the floor and she grabbed it up again, staring at the number with wide eyes, adrenaline charging through her even though it was barely seven in the morning.

Finally she pressed reply. She drew in her breath. “Hello?”

“Bonjour, good morning. This is Detective Avril Loubet from the Police Municipale in Nice. Is this Mrs. Rachel Rimmer?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Speaking.”

“Mrs. Rimmer. I am afraid I am calling you with some very distressing news. Please, tell me. Are you alone?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Is there anyone you can ask to be with you now?”

“My father. He lives close. But please. Just tell me.”

“Well, I am afraid to say that this morning the body of your husband, Michael Rimmer, was discovered by his housekeeper in the basement of his house in Antibes.”

Rachel made a sound, a hard intake of breath with a whoosh, like a steam train. “Oh,” she said. “No!”

“I’m so sorry. But yes. And he appears to have been murdered, with a stab wound, several days ago. He has been dead at least since the weekend.”

Rachel sat up straight and moved the phone to her other ear. “Is it—Do you know why? Or who?”

“The crime scene officers are in attendance. We will uncover every piece of evidence we can. But it seems that Mr. Rimmer had not been operating his security cameras and his back door was unlocked. I am very sorry, I don’t have anything more definite to share with you at this point, Mrs. Rimmer. Very sorry indeed.”

Rachel turned off her phone and let it drop onto her lap.

She stared blankly for a moment toward the window, where the summer sun was leaking through the edges of the blind. She sighed heavily. Then she pulled her sleep mask down, turned onto her side, and went back to sleep.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Lisa Jewell

“Utterly gripping” —LUCY FOLEY

“Enthralling” —RUTH WARE

“Insane suspense” —LEE CHILD

“Brilliant” —SARAH PINBOROUGH

“Excellent” —GUARDIAN

“Engrossing” —IAN RANKIN

“Stupendous” —RUTH JONES

Praise for The Family Remains

"Other authors are at a ten out of ten, for me, and Lisa is a solid hundred." —GILLIAN McALLISTER, Sunday Times bestselling author of That Night

"[A] triumph." —ERIN KELLY, Sunday Times bestselling author of Watch Her Fall

"Lisa Jewell is, simply, outstanding." —ALEX MARWOOD, author of The Poison Garden

"Compelling, ingenious, breath-stopping. No one creates characters as complex, real and utterly human as Lisa Jewell." —TAMAR COHEN, author of When She Was Bad

“[A]nother masterclass in thriller writing from the current queen of psychological suspense.” —MARK EDWARDS, author of The House Guest

‘[T]his is Lisa Jewell at her absolute best. I loved it!’ —PAUL BURSTON, author of The Closer I Get

From the Publisher

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.)

Publishers Weekly

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.

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews