The Family Upstairs

How it reads

The Family Upstairs is thriller (domestic psychological thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is eerie. It's atmospheric and uncanny, with a sense that something is wrong. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are family, secrets and class and society. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 464 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.