“Be careful who you let in…
In a large house in London’s fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.
In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.
They’ve been dead for several days.
Who has been looking after the baby?
And where did they go?” - Taken from the blurb.
This novel really interested me. I am a lover of crime and thrillers, so I couldn’t wait to get lost in this world. The chapters were super short which made it easy to whiz through; the writing wasn’t too complex where I lost interest (or got confused, I’m looking at you, War and Peace). The narration jumps from third person to first person in different chapters, giving us an insight to the main character’s life - the young woman who is known as Libby, or “the baby” - to Lucy, a middle aged woman living in France, and then to a man named Henry, looking back on his life as a young boy. We soon discover that Henry used to live in the house that has been inherited by Libby.
[Spoilers Ahead!]
Libby’s birth parents died when she was a baby - coincidence? - and since her birth parents’ house is in their trust fund, which goes to her once she has turned 25, Libby gets this mahoosive house in Chelsea. Desperate to learn more about her past and her parents, she digs around, finding articles on the house claiming that her parents did not die in a car crash - so she had grown up believing - they had in fact been involved in what looked like a suicide pact...and died in the house. She looks a little more and discovers that there was a baby left alone in the house, and after talking to the reporter of the article, she learns that she was said baby. Whether you think she is crazy or that you would do the same, Libby chooses to find out what happened to her parents and who she believes to be her siblings.
So already this is a lot for anyone to cope with. But trust me, it gets better!
Every now and then we jump across the pond to France where we meet a woman called Lucy, a 40-something homeless woman with two young children - and a dog. She has a reminder in her calendar for ‘The Baby is 25’ (ooh, we are putting together things!) So from here we can assume she means Libby. But what has she got to do with Libby? Well, she claims that Libby is an old friend’s daughter, who she wishes to visit. So she gathers as much money as she can - with a visit to her abusive ex husband for help - and plans to travel back to London to visit her “friend’s” daughter.
We jump into the past occasionally, where we meet Henry. Henry is remembering his childhood and telling us - or someone - about his crazy household. His parents were rich, he and his younger sister used to attend a private school, when one day, his mother started inviting strangers into their home to live with them. Okay, now this would be strange anyway for any child, but these people grow odd plants in the garden and start changing the way the family lives. It started with one person, called Birdie, a washed-out lead singer of a band, and then there’s a whole other family living there. Now you’re probably thinking, Okay, so what? Well, soon this new family - mainly their father, a physician called David Thomsen - begins making rules and throwing away everything Henry’s family owns. Henry’s mother assures him it’s to make her happy and she wants to help the earth by living simply. Well, this is fine right? Saving the planet? But Henry, his sister, and David’s children are not allowed outside, they cannot eat what they want, their rooms are monitored and their every move is watched. Pretty much a prison. They all sleep on the floor, they all wear these weird robes, and no one is allowed to speak out against David.
So this is beginning to match up with the theory of a suicide pact right? Well, fellow reader, as David’s rules get firmer and multiply, Henry’s mother decides that now would be the perfect time to bear David’s child. By this time, Henry’s father - Henry Snr - has slowly become immobile and essentially a potato. He cannot eat, wash, or speak, so he has begun to deteriorate. David’s wife no longer lives in the house, she escaped and filed for a divorce, meaning David is now hooking up with Birdie and Henry’s mother. They want to bring a new life into this house, raising it unspoiled by the corrupt world of materialistic things. Some traumatic things go down, and the now teenagers and this new baby, are all that is left alive in the house. The teenagers worry they will go to prison, so take off, knowing that someone will come for the baby.
Okay, now that I have thrown all of this information at you, I guess you can probably put together some of the gaps in the story. When I first started reading this, I found the writing style quite simple compared to some other novels I have read, however, I think that’s what made it a quick read. That and the intense plot.
Lisa Jewell really knows how to grab a reader’s attention. Even from the first chapter I was encaptured. Saying that, she also ends with a cliffhanger, which leaves us thinking there may be a sequel? (Shout out to Jewell and the publishers at Penguin Random House!)
There were a few flaws in this novel; the simplicity of the language, although it also made it an easy story to read, and the fact that the story kind of dragged until about half way through. I also had an issue with Libby, something about her just got on my nerves, all that uptightness about thinking people with tattoos are gross and not liking men with beards. She just seemed snobby to me. Granted she had been through a lot growing up, but it doesn’t take much to be a little less up yourself. There was minimal character development but it made sense with the atmosphere of the book; Libby was really the only character we saw change, and it was quite small in that she just changes her preference. We did get a great sense of what family means and the importance of knowing that the grass is always greener from the other side. I guess I should give this book a four by how much I have praised it, yet I feel like that would be too generous considering how much I disliked the protagonist. So I guess one for the great plot, one for the breeziness of the writing, and one for its conclusion which I think really tied it all together. Three out of five is not bad, I wish I could give it four but I’m sorry...Libby irks me.
★★★☆☆
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