This book was very well written. The author handled the topic of child abuse and drug abuse in a delicate manner. I also enjoyed the character development that happened for the three main characters! However, with that said, this book wasn’t for me. It was too slow of a thriller for me to enjoy. Overall, it was a good book. I would recommend this book if you like domestic thrillers! Thank you NetGalley for the book in exchange for my honest review!

Just finished this book and I'm sad to say goodbye to sisters Jessica, Alicia and Norah, who spent several years together in a difficult (to say the least) foster home. The poor treatment of the girls by their foster mother, Miss Fairchild, bonded them forever, and they remained close after they finally broke free from her control. As adults, the sisters have their share of issues, yet they are loving, resilient and strong-willed individuals. When bones are discovered beneath the foster home they lived in, they are forced to revisit their experiences as foster children and face Ms. Fairchild again, both emotionally and physically.

The mystery surrounds the identity of the person buried beneath the house. As usual, Sally Hepworth does a great job of keeping us guessing as we jump back in forth in time between the sisters' days spent with Ms. Fairchild at the foster home and the present day. As we read about each sister's past, we understand how it has shaped their present day lives. We are introduced to several other characters that contribute to the story, and to the mystery. The twist at the end was very clever and satisfying. I would call this book more of a mystery than a thriller, but overall its a great read with three very spunky survivors.

Holy Moly was this a good one. To be transparent, I’ve read every book Sally Hepworth has written and have enjoyed them all so this was an automatic request for me. I don’t know how she does it, but she happens to tell a story that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. In this book we meet 3 “sisters” who grew up together in the foster home that is Wild Meadows with their foster mother Ms Fairchild. What happens inside Wild Meadows is both horrifying and heartbreaking. Many years later, the sisters find out that Wild Meadows was demolished and during the demolition, bones of a child were found. Now Alicia, Jessica, and Norah return to the place that changed their lives forever. It wouldn’t be a Sally book without twists, turns, and jaw dropping parts and this one has it all. While it is a thriller , it also shows how the power of love, friendship and resilience can conquer all. Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the amazing Sally Hepworth for giving me the chance to read this advanced copy.

I really enjoyed this book. ALOT. This book follows three young girls who have been forced into the foster system through tragedy, neglect and abuse only to be placed with a foster parent who is just as abusive. They find strength and a sisterhood that lasts into adulthood where each of them has residual traumas that impacts each of their lives in ways they are ashamed to share with their sisters until they face another tragedy and are brought back to Wild Meadows. This book pulls you in and you will want to stay up late into the night to find out what happens!

Sally Hepworth is a Queen of Domestic Thrillers. Have popcorn ready, dim all the lights and get ready to escape to a farmhouse called Wild Meadows.

Three young women, Alicia, Jessica, and Norah are sisters of the heart. They became friends when they were in foster care, taken in by Miss Fairchild - owner of Wild Meadows. Now they are adults and the cops have questions for them such as whose bones are these buried under the farmhouse?

Hepworth engages several POV, allowing the reader to understand each girl deeply. The girls become very strong individuals and it's great to see. The ending is full of twists, turns and wow moments. Enough to make Linda Blair's head spin. Great book for a dark and stormy night.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for this enjoyable read and ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, hands down one if the best books I've read this year. Took my about a day & half to read but I do work 2 jobs lol. Looking forward to reading more by this author. Highly recommend

This book was so good! Im still thinking about the characters and the book itself. I love love love!! APRIL 23!! SAVE THE DATE EVERYONE! You won’t regret it!

Darling Girls was such an unexpected surprise! I’ve read two Sally Hepworth novels - The Younger Wife and The Soulmate. Having liked the former and disliked the latter, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Darling Girls, but I’m so happy I gave it a try.

The premise of this book was a refreshing change from a lot of the other books I’ve read. Though some of the subject matter was difficult to read at times, I still really enjoyed this dark, twisty, and sometimes twisted story. Hepworth does a fantastic job of character building and you really see how Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have suffered, yet grown over time. Miss Fairchild was the perfect antagonist and really succeeded in making me hate her.

If you love thrillers and twisty novels, absolutely pick this one up! Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for gifting me an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

✨ I Received this ARC in exchange for my honest review✨

WOW! You know a story is good when you are reading and trying to figure out the mystery the entire time.You think you’ve got it all figured out and the pieces slide into place and then BAM! The end blows your mind. I actually sat there staring at the wall for a good bit. Highly recommend!

⭐️Special thank to @netgalley and @sallyhepworth for this ARC⭐️

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I finished this in one day!
This is a story about three foster kids turned sisters, growing up in an abusive foster home, with a narcissistic foster mother. The story is told in past and present day timelines. When the grown sisters get a call that their old foster home has been demolished and human bones have been found underneath, they have to return and face the past they want to forget.
This story was so engaging from page one. The story flowed so well I finished it in one day. It was fast paced, but also has great character building, I felt connected to these sisters and their stories. I highly recommend this book. Another great one from Sally Hepworth!

Multi perspective, multi timeline. Hooks you RIGHT away. Great character development in all characters aided in the combination of past and present timelines.

I predicted a fair bit of some of the twists but not the way it all wrapped up. Hepworth did a phenomenal job creating a TRULY monstrous character the likes of Nurse Ratchet in Miss Fairchild! This one will stick with you!

Man I did not enjoy this. I think it was honestly misrepresented in advertising and as what Hepworth usually writes. For me, this was definitely not a thriller/mystery and wasn’t in the genre at all. It slogged on and switched between three characters and their past perspectives weaving a story of abuse, foster care, and child endangerment. As a survivour, this came across as a weird glorified story of children that are abused, are messed up as adults, and then by the end it’s all good to go. I had a hard time finding any interest in this as it was all just abuse, abuse, this child was abused. It wasn’t even triggering, it just lacked any sort of depth. It read more like a fucked up memoir of being raised by an abusive foster parent than any sort of thriller or crime story. And then at the very end, PLOT TWIST, this person was lying THE. WHOLE. TIME. This really missed for me and I honestly don’t think I’d read another by this authour in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC

A very unique twist! But I thought the end was a little anticlimactic. I would have loved to see a little more justice served. Overall a hard book to read but good.

Thank you NetGalley, Sally Hepworth, and St. Martins Press for giving me the opportunity to read and review the ARC of Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth.

I greatly enjoyed the storyline, characters, twists, & turns. The book was hard to put down because I wanted to know immediately what was going to happen next.

I highly recommend this book. Job well done. 👏

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the eARC of this book. This was my first novel by this author. I enjoyed the book. It was dark and the characters were well developed..I did find the ending a little rushed but overall was a good read!

Many thanks to Netgalley St Martin’s Press for providing me this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4 starts for Sally Hepworth and her newest thriller “Darling Girls”. Three adolescent girls spend time as foster kids in the home of an abusive and sociopath foster mother. The bonds that form between the girls are unbreakable as they grow into “sisters” and remain very close as adults still tying to cope with the affects of their trauma.

The twists and turns start when a child’s body is found under their previous foster home and keep coming until the very last page.

Don’t miss this psychological thriller… a superbly written and immensely engaging story.

First off thanks to netgalley for providing me an ARC!

Jessica was living at Wild Meadow with Miss Fairchild, a foster home. Initially, everything was okay, but overtime the grooming definitely set in.. And all Jessica wanted to do was make Miss Fairchild happy.
Then came Norah, she had a history of fighting back when people wronged her, and unfortunately that gave her a reputation of being violent.
This is when things shifted and Jessica was no longer the focal in Miss Fairchilds life and when the abuse stepped up a notch.
Then came Alicia, who originally was only suppose to be there a couple days while her Grammy healed, but ended up staying once her grandmother died.
Flash forward to many years later when a body is found under Wild Meadow. The sister reunite and return home to be apart of the investigation.

Overall, it was well written and I enjoy the switching of time and perspectives. However, there's a lot of abuse of kiddos in this book - which I'm sure is part of the point but it did make it hard to read and I wouldn't recommend it to parents who may be sensitive to that.

This is officially my new favorite book by Sally Hepworth. I couldn’t put it down and was completely satisfied with the ending. Highly recommend!

Tucked away in a farmhouse estate known as Wild Meadows, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia live under the care of their foster mother, Miss Fairchild. To the casual onlooker, Wild Meadows is a haven for wayward and otherwise orphan children with a caretaker who has devoted her entire life to them.

Behind closed doors, however, Wild Meadows is a nightmare.

Decades after the traumatic end to their time under Miss Fairchild's care, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia learn that a body has been found beneath the house at Wild Meadows. And just like that, the girls are summoned back to the place they risked their very lives to escape. Because if there's one thing they learned at Wild Meadows, it's that they weren't the last young girls to find themselves tangled in Miss Fairchild's web, and the truth may finally set them free.

And just like that, readers, Sally Hepworth is back at full force with "Darling Girls." Riddled with the very same pulse-pounding suspense that we came to know and love in "The Mother-in-Law" and "The Good Daughter," "Darling Girls" is a well-crafted, perfectly-placed story that is near impossible to put down. With both compelling dual perspectives and dual timelines that follow Jessica, Norah, and Alicia both during and after foster care, everything comes together in a jaw-dropping moment that reminds us once and for all: Sally Hepworth really is the queen of the ending-after-the-ending.

I just finished this book and oh my goodness!!! It was so good! It is definitely a slow burn kind of thriller but i didn't mind. I loved the multiple pov and how it jumps from past to present to learn more about each character and what they went through! Throughout the book, I threw out multiple theories and in the end, all of my theories were wrong which i loved! if i can guess the twists, it loses points in my mind. I am rating this book 4.5/5 stars!