Find a comfortable reading place and plan on being there for awhile once you start Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth. I read it in one day; once I started I was absolutely hooked. The story centers around 3 non- biological sisters who bonded for life during their time together in foster care at a place called Wild Meadows. Twenty five years later the reader meets Jessica, Norah and Alicia; each deeply affected by their time at Wild Meadows under the care of the volatile and impetuous Miss Fairchild. Each has received a phone call from a Detective informing them that remains have been found under the house, and requesting that they come to Port Agatha to be interviewed. The reader is taken on a journey to and from the time they were in care to the present. . I was captivated by what the girls experienced, and how it affected the women they became. Darling Girls is an extremely well crafted novel, and an extremely compelling read. I highly recommend it. 4.5 stars.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of Darling Girls, yet that in no way influenced my review.

“You’re lucky to be coming to this home.”

I keep writing and rewriting my review because while I don’t want this story to sound too dark (it isn’t), I DO want to convey how deeply affected I was. Darling Girls was my first novel by Sally Hepworth and it won’t be my last!

Jessica, Norah and Alicia are foster sisters who have a tight bond based in shared childhood trauma. Their foster mother Miss Fairchild is a calculating and insidious malignant narcissist. She reminded me of an evil Mrs. Hannigan. I could picture Miss Fairchild stumbling around drunk, lipstick smears on her face, singing Little Girls. (IFYKYK)

Twenty Five years after they broke free of their foster mother, the sisters are forced to revisit the past when bones are found underneath the house they lived in. Whose bones are they? How long have they been there? Are the sisters suspects? The perspective of each sister shifts fluidly from the present to the past as we learn how they came into each other’s lives. There’s also a creepy anonymous narrator woven in via visits with an equally creepy psychiatrist.

Sally Hepworth’s ability to create characters of incredible depth and psychological complexity is astounding. The sisters each have unique challenges as of result of their traumatic pasts, such as addiction, lack of impulse control and self loathing. There are moments of levity and humor too. I particularly enjoyed the bedtime jokes and couldn’t help but chuckle. I laughed, I cried, I cheered them on and I celebrated their courage. I had no idea I would feel so connected to each of these women AND their younger selves. I wanted to jump in and be the fourth sister! (I don’t have siblings.) This is a testament to Hepworth’s talent.

Jessica, Norah and Alicia are fierce, loyal, intelligent, kind and protective. They continue to work through their demons together. This story of resilience, sisterhood and family got me in all my feels and I still have book hangover. Family doesn’t have to be blood relation; we can choose our own.

⚠️The acknowledgments were so heartfelt and poignant it moved me to tears. This story contains potentially triggering subject matter and material but it’s also an area that’s needs light shed on it.

Thank you Sally Hepworth, St. Martin’s Press and NetGallley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Sally Hepworth delivers an edge of your seat story with lots of twists and turns. The characters are real and believable, and the story is realistic. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Big Sally Hepworth fan and I think this might be my new fave by her. Loved how the story was told, loved the main characters, loved the surprise twist at the end. Can’t find anything I didn’t like about this book. Would absolutely recommend

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC: Darling Girls is a twisty psychological thriller/mystery about three women who formed a family after being raised in an abusive foster home. They return to the area when bones are found under the home, and they are both witnesses and suspects. All of the women have been scarred by their experience and their former foster mother manipulated them and the system to the point that they doubt their experiences, yet they have bonded into a real family that supports each other. The book is well plotted and the story moves quickly. Despite the heaviness of the topics, there is humor. There are twists that I didn't expect. The three women and the babies who cycled through the toxic foster home find some resolution, but the author doesn't downplay the horror that they experienced and the lasting trauma--her afterword is illuminating.

▪️foster home
▪️found family
▪️childhood trauma
▪️psychological
▪️whodunit/who is it

OKAYYYYY what a knockout of a psychological mystery this one was. following Norah, Jess & Alicia who were raised in foster care, and the warfare they endured during their time. this is on the darker side for Hepworth, and was so incredibly well written. highly recommend.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for review!

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia consider themselves sisters. As adults, they have been summoned back to Port Agatha for an investisgation. The girls decide to travel together and face a secret from their past. Police have found some bones under the Wild Meadows house that used to stand.

The three ladies used to live together as foster children at Wild Meadows. Their "mother," Ms. Fairchild treated them badly and they have a story to tell. As the story unfolds, the reader finds that each girl has some major trauma to deal with from her childhood.

Hepworth delivers the story in her usual style. Each chapter is a different character. The reader finds out how each girl grew up and came to live at Wild Meadows. Personally, this is not my favorite Hepworth book. I found the story a little slow to develop. By the end of the book, everything unravels and the reader is able to piece everything together. I found the middle of the plot slow and somewhat boring.

4.5 stars rounded up

Wow! I’ve read several Sally Hepworth books and this one is another great one!

Just when you think you’ve got the plot figured out, the story shifts. A great read, good twist and characters that made me want more

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

Darling girls was an incredibly fast paced twisty thriller that I couldn’t put down. At the heart of the story we have 3 girls who were in foster care together and have stuck together since. Having this “found family” aspect along with the thriller was perfect for me. I loved every minute, but especially the end!

I thoroughly enjoyed Sally Hepworth’s last novel The Soulmate and her latest was even better. I am so impressed with her characterizations of Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. I was fully invested in each character’s experiences and fate. I love a novel with complex, strong, fully realized female characters who support each other and Darling Girls is exactly that.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I don’t feel like it’s going to be rememberable. It did keep me engaged and I enjoyed the experience, but I’m afraid if someone asks me about it next week. I won’t be able to tell them what it was about.

After reading The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth, I was beyond delighted to receive an ARC for her newest book, Darling Girls from NetGalley. I really enjoyed this book, and it was on my mind whenever I wasn't reading it. Definitely recommend this if you enjoy mystery thriller with very little gruesome details.
We follow three women who call themselves "sisters" after they all spend some time at a foster home called Wild Meadows. Miss Fairchild, their foster, gives off narcissistic Mary Poppins vibes. The timeline alternates between the three women's POVs in the "before" while they were at Wild Meadows as children, to the current age where they are all adults and BONES were discovered under the foundation of Wild Meadows, and an additional unknown POV who is speaking with a psychiatrist about the goings-ons at Wild Meadows.

With many questions as to if the girls were involved, and whose bones they belonged to, they have to face their childhood memories and traumas to get to the bottom of this. Each woman is a very unique character, with her own good and bad qualities and great depth and character development. Even the side characters were very developed. The twists at the end were not anticipated!! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was my second sally hepworth book. This book was so riveting and fast paced. I was easily sucked in. I usually read more than one book at a time, but this book had all my attention. I’m rating it 4 stars on Goodreads. The reason I’m giving it a 4, there were a lot of sentences that didn’t make sense. The sentences were run-on or out of place. There were also a lot of misspelled and grammatical errors.

Sally Hepworth delivers again! This was a book full of twists and turns that kept me guessing right up until the last page. Sally Hepworth has quickly become an auto buy/auto read author of mine.

It's hard to sum this story up. It is a phycological thriller that comments on the realities of being in foster care. It is also about found family. In many ways this was a hard story to read. The characters were well developed and had multiple layers and nuisances due to their life experiences. I found myself rooting for the three sisters and wanting the best for them.

I appreciated the author's note at the end and encourage you to read it. This was easily a 4.5 star read and would have likely been 5 stars if I wasn't so emotionally disturbed by the story.

There are some trigger warnings that are important to know, particularly around foster care and emotional abuse and manipulation. If you've experienced harm at the hands of a trusted loved one (parent, grandparent, foster parent, etc.) it may be smart to skip.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing a digital Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

When it comes to Sally Hepworth- I drop everything and start reading! I love, love, love her. And her newest novel, "Darling Girls", is no exception. She crafts the most relatable and likeable characters; I can't help but to identify with them. She is a master of characterization. I felt like I truly knew the three main characters.

There are three main characters, but this engaging story is told from 4 points of view. There are the three sisters (not by blood) who grew up in foster care together, building an unbreakable bond, Jessica, Norah and Alicia. The fourth POV is a mystery voice of someone in psychotherapy. These chapters were incredible and so engaging.
The three girls grew up with the odd Mrs. Fairchild as their foster mom. She's odd, cruel, dark and loving all at once.
The girls are now all grown up, but they get a call about their childhood home. Human remains have been found and they must return to the home of their youth where so much has happened.
Solid psychological thriller. Never miss a Sally Hepworth in my opinion. 4 stars.

Hepworth created a psychological masterpiece that might be my favorite book of the year.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are foster children that create a sisterly bond while dealing with their foster mother - Miss Fairchild.

As bones are discovered at their foster home, they all return to unravel what really happened in their childhood and beyond.

Hepworth creates multiple timelines that allow the reader to piece together the story slowly, while still being surprised at every turn. I sometimes dislike multiple timelines (authors can execute it poorly and the result is a confusing story), but these timelines were so clear and easy to follow. The structure made the reading experience so fun and still shocking. All of the twists and turns were so masterful and unexpected, but simultaneously made complete sense.

Each of the foster children’s stories are unique, complex, and heart wrenching, and their individual personalities are very entertaining. I was absolutely on the edge of my seat the entire time, and cleared my schedule to finish this book.

5 stars - would absolutely recommend!

Sally Hepworth has done it again! Enjoyed the past and present storylines, but despite my best efforts, I did not see that ending coming! Waiting patiently for her next novel…

My first read of 2024 did not disappoint! A psychological thriller surrounding the upbringing of three foster girls at the hands of their manipulative and terrorizing foster mother, Holly Fairchild.

This book takes place over the past and present lives of Jessica, Norah and Alicia as they deal with the aftermath of the abuse they endured as girls all while being forced back into the town where it all took place when a body is found under the home they grew up. Throughout the novel, the reader is left guessing whether the girls are keeping a secret and protecting one another or is someone else responsible.

The story and characters were interesting and the twists were thrilling. The author did a wonderful job at giving the reader insight into the heart wrenching experiences that some children who grow up in the foster system experience and weaved it into this suspenseful mystery. There were twists right up to the last page of this book and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a faced passed and interesting thriller.

This is my first time reading a Sally Hepworth novel and I’m looking forward to reading more books by this wonderful author.

Thank you at Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Three girls in a foster home, one no so wonderful foster mother and a major secret!!

This book had it all. Family, secrets, love, self discovery, a mystery, murder, police and dogs!
While I thought I had everything figured out, the last few pages were a complete shock! Did not see that ending at all!

A super fun thriller with a great ending!

Thank you to Sally Hepworth, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy!!

Hemsworth fan, but this one not a favorite. Slow moving, too much back and forth. Still, I wanted to know what happened. Ending was best part.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review