Darling Girls was a quick, reasonably entertaining thriller from Sally Hepworth. Told in alternating chapters in both the current and past timelines, we learn about the three foster sisters Jessica, Norah, and Alicia and the trauma they experienced at their foster home. Miss Fairchild is the antagonist of the story - and she is a doozy. In the current timeline a body is found buried underneath the house, and everyone wants to find out who it was.

Overall, this wasn’t a horrible book, but it wasn’t fantastic. The chapters were rather short, and that helped to propel me through the story. Also, the ending was fairly shocking, but not surprising.

Two things really stood out to me as negatives. One issue was that additional problems were added to the story for each of the foster sisters - possibly to expound on the fact that being a foster child can cause issues and trauma that can lead to emotional and/or mental heath issues.

I also didn’t like that one of the characters was described as being “a little OCD”. What was described in the book was someone who enjoyed a strict schedule and liked to be organized/help others to organize themselves. These personality traits do not equal a person who has been diagnosed with OCD, and portraying a character with these stereotypical and ignorant characteristics does not help mitigate the stigma of mental health. I expect more from the authors I read in matters like this, and I am disappointed to see it happening in this book.

This is my first Sally Hepworth novel. I was excited to be approved for this ARC. I was not disappointed. I did find the pace to be a little slow. That being said, I enjoyed the storyline and found this book to be an engaging read. This book is well thought out, and kept me guessing throughout. I enjoyed the varying POV and alternating timeline. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book.

3 girls are placed into foster care at a place called “Wild Meadows”. Ms. Fairchild runs this house, and the things the girls have to endure is extremely heartbreaking. It follows their lives as children and as adults, and I absolutely love Sally Hepworth’s style of writing. This was a fantastic book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth.

*Trigger Warning* Topic child abuse/neglect

I really have enjoyed and loved all books by Sally Hepworth her books are always great reads. This one was also a hit for me. This is one of those that you just want to spend the whole day in the story until the end.
Darling Girls is told in two different timelines and has multiple POV. The suspense/Thrill is paced well and the ending is perfect!
Fantastic story!

When I say I couldn’t put this book down, it was an understatement! From the beginning of the book to the very last word, I was completely captivated by Sally’s incredible writing!

Never have I felt so torn, feeling almost sorry for who I thought was the villain, going against the rest of the world.

I will say there are some trigger warnings of abuse and child endangerment, but even in those moments, you just have press on, because it’s just so wonderfully written, that you have to know how it ends! BRAVO!!!! 🩷✨

“Darling Girls” is the newest thriller from one of my favorite authors, Sally Hepworth. Here we follow the story of three sisters, Alicia, Jessica, and Norah, who were fostered together by a wicked woman misleadingly named “Miss Fairchild”. The story alternates between past and present. In the present, the girls are called back to their childhood house of horrors when a body of a child is found on the property. In the past, we get to know the sisters as they each came under the care of Miss Fairchild, bearing firsthand witness to the abuse they suffered and learning how three girls with distinctly different personalities became thick as thieves.


Sally Hepworth is an autobuy author for me. I’ve always loved how she builds her characters and im always astonished at how quickly I become enraptured in the story. I’ve always considered her writing to be more “literary fiction with a little mystery”. This book was no different, as I found myself flipping through chapter after chapter trying to figure out who the dead kid was, and who was responsible. I was loving the story… until the end. It felt rushed and was honestly a little cheesy.

The character development was another issue I had with the book. The characters are incredibly well developed in the past chapters, but when we switch to the present, I found them a little boring (especially Jessica. Norah was my favorite). I also had a bit of difficulty associating some of the characteristics of the girls from the past with the women of the present.

In summary, while this is not a bad book, it just doesn’t compare to some of Hepworth’s previous works.

I would like to thank Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for providing a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review of this book.

I wanted to enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed The Soulmate. But the characters fell flat for me, there were random love storylines thrown in, and I just didn’t have the same edge-of-my-seat feeling reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Sally Hepworth for this ARC!
What an insanely wild ride…! This is my second Hepworth novel and surely will not be my last!
This story was creepy and heartbreaking from the first page with engaging + interesting characters to boot.
I was entirely fooled by the twist until about the 75% mark of the book which was entirely fine with me.
Multiple character POVs with short chapters (my favorite) without lacking the in-depth character development needed for a story such as this. I truly have no complaints.
I am so thankful to have had the pleasure of reading this and highly recommend to others!
5 ⭐️

I love Sally Hepworth and this book did not disappoint! I enjoy books about foster care and sisterhood, so this story combined two of my favorite subjects and kept my attention. I enjoy Sally's pacing and characters. Her mystery/thriller stories are among my favorite ones out there.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book. I was excited to read this book because I read another book by this author and I loved it. This book did not disappoint. It switches narrators and also different timelines, yet the story is still easy to follow. I didn't want to put this book down as I wanted to figure out what the heck happened! Highly recommend for fans of suspense/thrillers.

Foster homes tend to have a reputation of being hard on kids. Many foster parents try really hard to give these foster children a feeling of safety during this stormy part of their lives. Some foster parents need the money so they take in kids for that reason and the kids are not as fortunate. Some foster parents are evil, such as the one in this book, who are out for their own reasons.

Ms. Townsend took in one little girl, raised her to the age of 10 and then took in another.. and another... and then some babies, too. The older girls end up spending their days cleaning the home as it is never clean enough for Ms. Townsend. Then they end up raising the babies when the babies don't love her enough to exclude others.

The story goes back and forth between their youth and their days as adults when the foster home is sold, the house is torn down and the rest of the mystery can come to light.

Interestingly different story line and sad that it is very possible for something like this to happen. Good story though, so thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy. The honest opinions expressed here are my own and are freely given.

This book was great! I loved that it was a different type of thriller than I am used to. One of my favorite parts of reading a book is finding out where the title came from, and this one did not disappoint. Sally Hepworth is becoming one of my favorite authors and I can’t wait to add this to my shelf when it releases!

Thank you for this book from Net Galley for review.. This book was super good and I devoured it in just a few days (well technically it was longer but only because of the holidays) Darling Girls had me hooked from page one and I did not want to stop reading. I really enjoyed this story and the characters and I was so curious to find out about Wild Meadows and whose bones were found.
Another thing I really liked about this book was the short chapters which made it for a quick read. This book is told between two different timelines as well as multiple POV's between the three sisters that lived on Wild Meadows with their foster mother Miss Fairchild.
I definitely recommend reading this one if you want a great thriller where you need to know the answers kind of book!!
Be sure to check this one out in April 2024!!!

I was worried about descriptions of abuse when I started this novel, but they were manageable for me. I flew right through it as I usually do with a Sally Hepworth book. Lots of questions about who the narrator was kept me reading!

Witnesses? Or prime suspects? Three sisters are raised by their foster mother, Miss Fairchild, who is a loving, generous woman (to those outside) but things are very different in their home. When a body is found under their childhood home, the secrets they kept are at risk of being revealed. I enjoy all of Sally Hepworth's novels, and this one was right up there with my top Hepworth titles.

Sisters by circumstance if not by blood, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia were all saved from unfortunate situations and were lucky enough to be placed in the foster home of Miss Fairchild on her beautiful farm estate. All was not as it seemed in the farmhouse though. Miss Fairchild was a strict taskmaster and could turn on the girls in the blink of an eye. When they finally escaped no proof of wrongdoing could be found. Years later, each girl deals with her problems and scars in their own way, but they are always there for each other. Their lives are thrown out of control when a body is found at the old house. They are called in to give statements, but are they witnesses or suspects? As the story unfolds you hear the tale of the past and present from the various characters and will be left guessing until the very end. I guarantee you will be shaking your head in disbelief at the conclusion of this twisted tale!

Sally Hepworth never disappoints!
Three adult women who spent years in the same abusive foster home are forced to revisit their past as part of an investigation after the remains of a child are found buried under the house they lived in.
As the mystery unfolds the reader is given a disturbing look into the dark, twisted foster mother’s psyche, all the children endured under her care, and the resulting damage that follows them into adulthood.
From there we are taken on a roller coaster ride where everything is questioned and everyone has a secret .
This was a well crafted suspenseful psychological thriller with unexpected twists right up to the end.

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Sally Hepworth never disappoints - this is another great mystery and family drama! The characters are well developed, and you can really sympathize with Jessica, Norah and Alicia and Miss Fairchild is truly an awful woman. I liked the relationship between the sisters and how their story was told. Thanks to NetGalley for the digitial ARC.

I loved the ending of this book—the twists near the end are fantastic and the resolution to the story of each character was satisfying. However, the subject matter can be hard to take. I consider myself to be fairly well-adjusted and able to read without being triggered, but child abuse is disturbing. The protagonists are three women who became sisters when raised together in a care home. The dual timeline switches between their upbringing with a foster mother who psychologically abused them and when, as adults, they learn that human bones have been discovered buried under that house. There are also records from a therapist’s sessions with a woman who was abused as a teenager (but she is not identified until the end). In the end all of the pieces fit together. Like Sally Hepworth’s previous books, the pace is quick and the storytelling is engaging, but the subject matter here is not for every reader. Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

I always get excited when I come across a new novel by Sally Hepworth and Darling Girls did not disappoint. Trigger warning: child neglect and abuse is displayed. The "scenes" weren't graphic per say, but it was very heart wrenching and may be a trigger for some readers.

I loved the bond and sisterhood that was formed between three foster children/women. I usually am not a fan of multiple POVs, however Sally Hepworth made everything very cohesive. I'm all for thrillers and mysteries, and Darling Girls hit every aspect. The ending had me speechless.

I went into this novel blind, and I'm glad I did.
Thank you NetGalley, Sally Hepworth, and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.