Good Morning America has announced the second pick for its new book club.
The morning show selected Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs for its Cover to Cover book club, which debuted last month with Angie Cruz’s Dominicana.
The Family Upstairs, the 18th novel from the prolific British author, follows three siblings, Libby, Lucy, and Henry, who come together after two decades when Lucy inherits the house they grew up in.
Jewell told Good Morning America that her novel was inspired by a woman she saw in the south of France two years ago.
“She looked kind of furtive and a bit frantic,” Jewell said. “She looked like she had some sort of secret that she was hiding or something that she was escaping from, and I couldn't stop thinking about this woman.”
Jewell also discussed her book in a video posted to the YouTube page of Penguin Books Australia. Asked how she’d like her readers to feel when reading the book, she said, “I think I’d like my readers to feel all sorts of things. The three characters are all having three very different experiences. So when they’re with Libby, I’d like them to feel caring and soft; when they’re with Lucy, I’d like them to feel concerned and worried; and when they’re with Henry, I’d like them to feel completely wrong-footed and not know where they stand with him at all.”
Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
