I always generally enjoy Sally Hepworth books. This one fell right in the middle for me! The story follows three foster sisters who are now adults and bones have been discovered under their old foster home whom they shared with a basically psychotic foster mother. The story held my interest throughout, I really enjoyed the personalities of the three sisters (all so different, but intriguing and unique) along with the different POVs (past, present and a mystery POV). I heard the ending was super shocking and while it was, it didn’t blow me away as I expected it to so that was a minor let down. The content is a little darker than Sally’s other books, but I enjoyed this book. I will continue to read anything that she writes.

This book started out strong and just kept getting better and better.

Three foster girls returned to town after bones were found behind the home they lived. With then and now chapters the story unfolds of this house of horrors and the girls who survived.

The creepy factor was strong and Miss Fairchild played her role as the Barbie wannabe foster mom with an evil streak.

The slow burn setup made my imagination run wild. Sally Hepworth masterfully delivered a jaw dropping, didn’t see that coming, ending.

Three girls were separately sent to a group home run by Miss Fairchild. Constantly told by everyone how lucky they are to be placed there, the girls feel anything but. Miss Fairchild’s form of abuse is far sneakier and messed up than anyone knows. They escaped her physically, but mentally allowed her to shape their future lives. When a body is found under the house twenty years later, everything they thought they knew gets thrown out the window.
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💭Thoughts💭
I always expect Sally Hepworth’s books to be a bit more thrilling, but they are really a slow burn. I liked the characters a lot and the bond that they formed as chosen sisters. I did feel like it was a bit disjointed at times, but overall thought it was good storytelling.
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⌛️Favorite Moment⌛️
Norah was hysterical. Even though she had raging anger issues, her point of view and quick comebacks had me laughing.

Trigger Warning: Child abuse, sexual violence against children, sexual exploitation of an adult.

Darling Girls follows 3 adult women as they revisit their time under the care of their foster parent, Miss Fairchild. I loved the bond between the sisters and the depiction of how their childhood was still impacting their lives as adults. The perspective changes between then 3 women and the timeline changes between past and present. This when combined with a twisting storyline made this book hard to put down. This is such an engrossing book with a very unexpected final chapter. Overall I really enjoyed this book but be sure to check TWs to ensure it’s right for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this captivating ARC!

ARC REVIEW

Darling Girls
BY Sally Hepworth

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Publishing date: 4/23/24

GOODREADS SUMMARY:

For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls, they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life.

But their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?

REVIEW : It sucked me in from the very beginning! Really really good book that kept me wanting to know more.

The story unfolds from the viewpoints of Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. As the reader, we experience their childhoods under the care of Miss Fairchild but also as the investigation of the unknown body unfolds in the present day.

I couldn't give it 5 stars because when the twist was revealed, I was a liiiiiiitle bit confused. I actually had to write somethings down to help make sense of what I was reading. After it clicked, I thought, "Oh wow, nice twist!" 🤣

I recommend this one! Entertaining and suspenseful for sure!pick this one up next month and add it to your tbr 🙂

THANK YOU @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this one early!

This was a solid 4-4.5 stars.

Described as a thriller/mystery thriller, I would consider it on the lighter side for a thriller, more like a contemporary women's fiction psychological mystery!

When a body is discovered under a former foster home during demolition, the discovery is jarring, mentally taxing, and emotionally damaging for a trio of foster sisters. Dragged back to the site of their abusive childhood, the memories seem to open a Pandora's box as the police try and figure out exactly who the bones represent. A story within a story unfolds and you won't see the ending coming!

My most favorite thing about this book is the found family story line that's the backbone of the whole tale. Most mystery/suspense/thrillers don't have a happy ending but this most definitely does and I LOVE that about this story. I really enjoyed getting to know Norah, Alicia, and Jessica and I was rooting for them the whole way through. The pacing was perfect, the reveals pertinent and attention grabbing and I stayed glued to the pages till the very end. The ending was certainly an exclamation point!

Will definitely read this author again!

An exceptionally crafted psychological mystery about three sisters growing up in foster care. As adults the sisters are summoned back to their childhood home and forced to wade through their traumatic past. This book kept my guessing until the bitter end! Hepworth did a fantastic job of weaving the characters lives together to build suspense. I appreciated the multiple points of view.

This was my first Sally Hepworth book and it won't be my last.

Hepworth’s books are always fun, bingeable reads and this was no exception! I loved the nonlinear timeline and multiple POVs. The mystery had me guessing the whole way through and moments that had my jaw dropping. Highly recommend for your next addicting thriller!

5 Stars!

I loved this, I was absolutely hooked on this book… I could not put it down. This has now become one of my favourite thrillers of all time. A personal preference of mine in thrillers is that there is at least one individual I like and I am rooting for, and I definitely rooted for the three main girls in this one. And that Miss. Fairchild chick… She is on my list of enemies!

Thank you netgalley for the arc of this book. This is my first Sally Hepworth book, and it absolutely did not disappoint. I was intrigued the entire way through, and all my theories were not correct! 5/5 I will be recommending this to everyone

I partially read this on my Kindle, and partially listened on audio. The narration on the audio book was excellent! The only upshot for the Kindle read is that if you're listening to the audio over a longer period of time, I think it's a bit easier to track the Kindle version. Overall, this wasn't my favorite Sally Hepworth book. I didn't quite connect with any of the characters, and thought it felt more like a drama than a thriller/mystery. But overall, I still enjoyed it!

Three young women, who were in the same foster care home when they were young girls, have been asked to return to the police department in that town because bones were found when the foster care home was demolished. The young women, Jessica, Norah and Alicia, have been close since they left the foster care home and consider each of their sisters. The story is told in a then and now format with multiple POVs. I really enjoyed this book with all the twists it took and the very surprising ending.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book that I absolutely could not put down.

I find Sally Hepworth to be a really reliable mystery writer, and she absolutely delivered with this one. The story is told through the perspectives of three foster sisters, featuring both past and present points-of-view. Hepworth successfully creates three unique voices through the sisters, allowing the reader to experience the same event through different eyes. This is a dark and often unsettling novel but one I would recommend to anyone looking for a fast-paced, female driven story! Thank you to Hepworth, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

I really enjoyed the latest book by Sally Hepworth. It was well written and I read it quickly. It also had some twists at the end that I hadn’t quite put together and saw coming. I look forward to her next book!
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC!

Twenty five years ag three girls met at a foster home. Today they each receive a phone call from the police that there former foster home has been demolished and the bones of a young child have been found. While recounting their stories to the police it is apparent that there was a lot of things going on with the foster mother and their time in the home that no one knows and that wasn't good for any of the girls. They found a way to escape the foster mother, but now are sucked back into her conniving, selfish, hateful orbit and they have no idea how bad she really is and how far she has gone.

I always love Sally Hepworth's books. Her writing style keeps me on the edge of my seat with plot and character development.

The novel follows Jessica, Norah, and Alicia over past and present timelines of their foster child experience. The problem I had was none of the characters seemed all that likable. However, I did not see the ending coming and had to reread it twice to fully grasp.

I will always put Sally's books at the top of my "to read" pile and would recommend this to everyone.

I really enjoyed Darling Girls. It kept me guessing until the end and there were twists that I didn’t see coming. I didn’t want to put it down. At some points, I found the twists and characters hard to follow but overall I really enjoyed the book and recommend it when it comes out on April 23, 2024

Jessica, Alicia, and Norah grew up in foster care with Miss Fairchild. Unbeknownst to the authorities, Mrs. Fairchild was far different behind closed doors than she presented herself on wellness check visits. Miss Fairchild was obsessed with cleaning, held the girls to unrealistic expectations, and was the farthest thing from a warm mother figure. But was she a murderer? When the three women receive a call from police saying that human bones have been found under Miss Fairchild’s swimming pool, the sisters are pulled back into Miss Fairchild’s devious web.

Wow, what a thrilling story! I literally couldn’t put it down. Sally Hepworth is an auto-buy author for me at this point. I tell myself that I’ll only read a few pages and then find myself completely sucked in! I felt connected with all the sisters in different ways. All of them were so desperate to protect each other and were forced to go through terrible things. One of the most intriguing parts was trying to figure out whether Miss Fairchild was a murderer or not and who the bones belonged to. I won’t say more except that there were some excellent red herrings and twists that made me gasp. I love Sally Hepworth’s thrillers and look forward to her next book!

Thank you to Sally Hepworth, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Instagram, Storygraph, Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.

Oh Sally Hepworth!! I just love her books and this one was no different!!! I loved this dark twisty slow burn of a thriller, we have 3 foster sisters and about their lives now and back when they where kids at Mrs Fairchilds country home as foster children and what they endured there and how it impacted their adult lives! This one is kinda heavy so know that going on, the abuse these children faced wasn’t easy to read about. But saying that I think it was also written really well with enough detail to keep me wanting more but not completely destroying my heart. I thought how it switched to each POV and to now and then was very smooth and it flowed well! I loved each POV equally and couldn’t wait to get back to each to know what happened

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is a phenomenal thriller that takes the reader through a gamut of emotions with its twists and revelations. Hepworth makes use of four different points of view and switches back and forth between the past and present to reveal the story with skill and compassion.
Sometimes as a reader you have to accept that the author has done her research because you are unfamiliar with the subject matter. This time, for me, I was all too familiar with the subject matter and must say that Hepworth is bang on in her depiction of the darker side of the foster care system.
I found the underlying tale of the sisters in foster care disturbing because Hepworth was so accurate in her descriptions of the emotional impact of abusers in foster care and adoption, and of the horrible care givers who cause the pain. Even as an adult a world away from where this book is set, I recognize that feeling of being 'lucky' that Hepworth portrays so well. Lucky that my experience wasn't as bad as the ones described in the book, lucky to have been able to stay with my sister. I remember the hunger - for food, for affection, for approval, for safety...the list goes on. I relate to the bitterness on hearing the women who mistreated us praised as though they were saints for taking us in, when they really took foster children for the money or adopted for appearances sake, not the children's.
The story in Darling Girls hits home with realistic characters who grow up to be flawed adults. It is compelling, and as their story unfolds with multiple surprises and twists, it grabs the reader and won't let go. It will resonate with this former foster care survivor for a long time to come and is sure to move others as well.
Well-written, suspenseful, with plenty of gut wrenching twists and heartwarming relationships that provide the characters with strength and support, this book goes beyond thriller to examining a social issue often overlooked, with care and skill.
This is the best Sally Hepworth I've read so far.
Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC of #DarlingGirls.