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Goodreads Synopsis: 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—news that 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-ever 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 proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth. The Family Remains (The Family Upstairs, #2) by Lisa Jewell | Goodreads Thank you to Lisa Jewell, Simon & Schuster Canada, and NetGalley for providing me with an ebook copy of The Family Remains for me to read and review. I found myself of two mind sets when I found out that Jewell was writing a sequel to The Family Upstairs. On one hand I was excited because there were one or two things I was left wondering about after finishing the first book, but also unsure because most things were wrapped up quite nicely, or so I had thought. There was much more to be explored in the lives of the characters, in particular the lives of the now-adult children of 16 Cheyne Walk and where they have gone since reconnecting with Libby. When the book starts out with the discovery of remains, I had to really wrack my brain to think of who it could possibly be that they were finding. It was a little over 2 years since I read the first book, so I really had to refresh my memory about all of the characters. This book is promoted as a 'standalone' sequel, but I find that to be not entirely true. Readers will definitely get much more out of this book if they have read the first. There are many reminders through the characters thinking back and talking about the past, but there is just so much more about each character and the entire backstory of the situation that I feel is truly important to fully understand this continuing story. Similarly to the first book, The Family Remains is told from many different perspectives, up to 5 or 6, and from multiple different timelines. I found this interesting to see, but frustrating when the switches of perspective weren't always specified. This felt like it disrupted the flow of the story for me, when some of the time the switch of perspective was accompanied by the name of the character and possibly the year the perspective is from, but many other times the switches didn't have any clarification. I found myself getting annoyed with trying to follow the jumps when the small addition of clarifying the new perspective at the start of a chapter would have made the story much easier to follow. I still found myself drawn into the stories from each of the different perspectives and curious about how they would all eventually come together. Each individual character was developed so uniquely and it was really fascinating to see how their stories and relationships continued. This was an interesting read, but I do recommend reading The Family Upstairs first rather than reading The Family Remains as a standalone. 3 Stars!
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