The Family Remains is a sequel to Lisa Jewell’s New York Times bestselling 2019 novel The Family Upstairs. Similar to The Family Remains, The Family Upstairs is told from differing points of view. Libby’s and Lucy’s adult lives are told in the third person, while Henry shares his memories of the past in the first person. This is a similar structure to The Family Remains in that Lucy’s, Henry’s, and Samuel’s chapters are set in 2019, while Rachel’s chapters span three years in the past between 2016 and 2019.

Both novels are structured as mysteries. In The Family Upstairs, Libby is the detective character, alongside reporter Miller Roe. After she inherits the house on Cheyne Walk at 25, she dig into her family’s past to discover more about the strange circumstances leading up to the deaths of David Thomsen and Mr. and Mrs. Lamb. In The Family Remains, a new character, Samuel Owusu, fills the detective role. In both cases, the detective is separated from the events they are uncovering—Libby by time and Samuel by the fact of not being a member of the family.

The novels portray the gradual decline of the Lamb family, and the ways that childhood trauma affects the adults who survive it.