The Family Upstairs

Libby is a 25-five-year-old woman living in St. Albans, England, where she works for a luxury kitchen design company. Adopted as a baby, Libby grew up not knowing much about her biological family. The novel opens on Libby’s 25th birthday, when she receives a mysterious letter stating that she has inherited a mansion in Chelsea. Over the course of the novel, Libby revisits the mansion and unravels her biological family’s story. Libby discovers that she is the daughter of Lucy Lamb and Phin Thomsen, both teenagers at the time of her birth, and that her birth name was Serenity Love Lamb.

Libby is very organized and likes to have her life planned out. However, when the sudden inheritance of the Chelsea house upends her life plans, Libby learns that she doesn’t have to have every moment planned out, and that life changes can happen unexpectedly. When Libby meets Miller Roe, she realizes, “[Miller] doesn’t see life the way she sees it. He’s prepared to be wrong; he doesn’t always need to know what’s going to happen next. The thought of living life as Miller lives his life is strangely appealing to her” (253). At the end of the novel, Libby sells the Chelsea house, earning a large amount of money which she splits with Henry and Lucy, and begins a romantic relationship with Miller Roe.