Omg!!!! I love Sally Hepworth, imo she can do no wrong and this book is no exception! It tells the tale of a trio of foster kids and their experience while staying with Miss Fairchild and how that also has molded them into the adults they are today. Maybe a bit dysfunctional (who isn’t?!) but one good takeaway is the bond they forged, stronger than blood. Their lives are spiraling out of control and to top it all off, the police want to talk to them about their time with Miss Fairchild when grisly discovery is made. They’ll have to confront the past to get through to the other side.

I've been a fan of Sally Hepworth since The Family Next Door and have rushed to read each new book ASAP.

The Darling Girls centres around three sisters Alicia, Jessica and Norah. They each gave their issues. They aren't really sisters, but called themselves sisters due to the close bond they formed while being fostered as children by the unpredictable Miss Fairchild.

When human bones are found on the site of the house they were fostered in, they are forced to face up to memories from the past. Whose bones are they and who buried them?

With three adult main characters and flashbacks to their time in foster care it isn't the fastest start, but when it gets going...Wow!

This is by far the darkest Sally Hepworth book I've read, life wasn't kind to the three sisters in Miss Fairchild's care. This is closer to Lucinda Berry's dark and disturbing territory than Sally Hepworth's signature sunny domestic noir and I loved it!

Great characters that we empathise with, an intricate plot, humour and big twists.

Once I got hooked I couldn't put it down.

Very powerful, moving, shocking and thoroughly entertaining!

Definitely recommended.


Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press

Alicia, Jessica, and Norah are sisters who from the outside look like your typical mostly high-functioning adults with some moderate issues. From the inside, there’s a past involving a shared foster home with an unpredictable, narcissistic foster mother. They thought they had left their past behind them until a set bones were discovered underneath their foster home and were called by police for questioning. Now they have to face the demons inside of themselves and each other…

This is hands down my favorite Sally book. Masterfully written, I could not put this down!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced release copy. Out April of 2024, this is definitely one for the TBR.

Now excuse me while I go tell all my friends how they need to buy this book….

A great read! I love when a book gets started really early on. I wanted to know MORE every time I finished a chapter. I loved how each of the three main characters were very different and loved the POVs as adults and as kids!

This was a fun murder mystery book. The twists and turns were entertaining. I liked that the girls showed true trauma from their circumstances. Definitely some triggering circumstances in this book but a good read for mystery/thrillers lovers.

In Darling Girls, Sally Hepworth creates an intricate and enticing plot centered on unraveling the mystery related to the childhood of three sisters, Jessica, Alicia, and Norah (with an h), who grew up in foster care under the supervision of Miss Fairchild. Hepworth does such skillful work of developing each character’s backstory and personality traits in a way that makes them distinct and endearing in their own ways. She builds the mystery by shifting from past to present unveiling each sister and her story intermingling humor with the often disturbing details of their childhood. The fierce loyalty of the sisters for one another provides light to the darkness of the traumas each has endured and inspiration in their ability to love, thrive, and survive. The mystery that draws the sisters back to Port Agnes makes the book terribly hard to put down. Like all of Hepworth’s works, the story and characters have a magnetic pull that draws readers in to the book’s world. The resolution does not disappoint and provides well placed surprises along the path. The novel itself reminds us of the power of sisterhood, well-placed loyalty, facing past trauma, and resilience. Hepworth’s presentation of the foster care system portrays both the shortcomings and darkness as well as the potential successes and light that can result.

Alicia, Jessica and Norah appear like your average grown women but underneath the facade they have some deep trauma dating back to their childhood. The women grew up together in a foster house but it wasn’t a happy ending aside from the bond the three women were able to form. When bones are discovered underneath that fateful house, they’re thrust back into the past and forced to face their demons. And secrets. Whose bones are they? Who’s responsible?

I adore this book. I adore Sally Hepworth. I adore all the feelings she was able to invoke with one book. So many feelings especially in the last 50% of the book. The way everything came together in the end was simply beautiful and truthfully not one I saw coming. A beautiful story about family and friendship which is always an added bonus for a mystery/thriller. Overall, a 4 star read because it was a pretty slow start but once Hepworth hooks you, SHE HOOKS YOU.

Thanks so much St Martin's Press and NetGalley.

Alice, Norah, and Jessica share a bond as they all were with Miss Fairchild as foster children. Now adults, a detective has informed them that a body has been discovered under the farmhouse of their old foster home. They are unexpectedly brought back to the past and to Miss Fairchild herself.

This book is hard to read at times, and is a powerful reminder of how children need to be protected. Told from multiple POVs in the past and the present, there are so many layers to the plot. You really get to know the main three characters. This a mystery story with an ending that is surprising!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this free digital copy for my honest review of this story.

Oh, my gawd is this a story! This story grabs you from the very beginning and doesn’t let you go. Sally Hepworth has a way of doing that. On the seat of my pants I flip page by page wondering what will happen next. Hepworth incites anger at the broken foster care system, foster care parents, parents who abandon their children to this system and the lives these children live as a result of their lives in foster care. Then she demonstrates the love that the heroes of the foster care system provide.

74% into this story and I am nauseous and furious enough to stop reading but still want to know how this is going to end for these 3 young women. And who wouldn’t want to know about the bones?

In the end the reader has a tangle of emotions for what children in foster care live through, the effects these emotions carry over into their adult lives and how many appreciate the love provided to them by their foster families. Three foster children that grow into strong adult women but with such a strong bond to their foster sisters, possibly even stronger than some natural siblings.

I enjoy Sally Hepworth's books so "Darling Girls" was a must read. The story has a central mystery of whose bones are found under an old foster house and the characters and scenarios are crushingly authentic. Things happened to foster children in this story that were so painful I had to skip through them. Like Hepworth's other stories, I read this in one sitting. Powerful, dark, and disturbing, I highly recommend this for readers of psychological suspense thrillers and Hepworth fans. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the opportunity to read this incredibly captivating story!! For fans of Those Girls- Chevy Stevens and The Secrets of us- Lucinda Berry!

Alicia, Jessica and Norah are adults now. Incredibly close sisters who met in foster care in a small farm town. Miss Fairchild (mommy dearest) was their guardian and now they are called back as a body has been found on the property. We then get an in debt look into their time at the farm and what a heartbreaking story it is!

This story was one of my favorites this year and I’ve read 180 books. Gut wrenching with an unexpected twist at the end!

This book is classic Sally Hepworth. Twisty and dark, yet with characters who have depth that you can’t help but root for. Darling Girls, for me, had a lot of quiet tension. There’s obviously the huge questions of whose bones were found under the house and how did they get there. There are also questions about how each of the adult foster children are going to work through their issues. What I appreciated the most is that the reader gets full closure on this book. There are no unanswered questions and you do not have to imagine an ending for any of the characters…the author is gracious enough to tie up all the loose ends in a very satisfying way. It’s very well-written, too…the descriptions are so vivid that I could picture everything in my mind. This would make a great miniseries if Netflix or Amazon Video wanted to take it to the screen!

A few caveats before I tell you to go read this immediately. First, it’s dark and there is child abuse. Reader, know thyself. If certain themes make your stomach turn, go research the trigger warnings on this one. Second, do yourself a favor as you begin reading and jot down a few reminders about who is who. In the early stages of the book, I had a little trouble keeping everyone straight (particularly Alicia and Norah for some reason).

Summary: This was an absorbing, captivating read. I read it in an afternoon to the complete neglect of all my other responsibilities. If you like dark psychological thrillers, this one is very well done! Fans of Sally Hepworth will love this one!

To the publisher-thank you for the ARC. Also, well done on the cover. Whoever designs the covers for Sally Hepworth’s books does a wonderful job of making them eye-catching and appealing.

DARLING GIRLS was another winner by Sally Hepworth, who is quickly becoming an auto-buy author for me. This multiple POV thriller was a fast, engaging read - the story flowed seamlessly between the different characters and raced to a surprise ending.

Similar to her other books, Sally Hepworth has a way of writing that sucks a reader in quickly. Despite her recent books being thriller-esque in nature, her writing has an authenticity and believability that feels as if her stories could happen anywhere. This is part of the delight of reading one of her novels!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review DARLING GIRLS!

I received a ARC from NetGalley of Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth. I devoured this book! Definitely a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ book for me. Amazing character development and told from multiple points of view. I am a big fan of this author and she did not disappoint with this book! I loved how the book flowed and went back from present to past. I found myself tearing through the pages to see what would happen next. Thank you NetGalley!

This book was amazing I could not put it down. The characters are very detailed and you feel like you are a part of the book

Sally Hepworth has never let me down! This book was multifaceted with many different layers of plot. Darling Girls is focused on three women who spend defining years of their childhood together in a foster home. Twenty-five years later, they receive a phone call from a detective about a discovery of human remains underneath the house that they grew up in. The women decide to go together as best friends/sisters back to the home that traumatized them to uncover lingering secrets of their past.

I loved how the story was told and how it went deeply into the personal lives of the main characters. The author does such a good job of not overshadowing any of the characters. I felt like I could feel the beautiful connection of the women through the pages of the book. Oftentimes, when I read Thrillers, I get so annoyed that authors care too much about making the plot “twisty” and “riveting” that they don’t put enough thought into character development, but I have never had that problem with Sally Hepworth. I love how I can tell that she puts so much thought into how she would write the story, but never overdoes it.

This book was so eerie and ominous that it was so hard to control my eyes. They kept trying to skip ahead because I was so excited to read what came next! The author always does such a good job with introducing topics, lightly, and then referring back to them later on.

The only negative things I have to say is that there were quite a few spelling and grammatical errors. I’m hoping those things get resolved before the book officially comes out, but honestly, the plot was so good that I barely noticed. A five-star read for me would be something that I emotionally connected to and couldn’t predict. I felt like some parts were predictable, but others had me genuinely shocked and honestly pretty anxious about what would come next. I also have conflicting feelings regarding the ending. If you’re looking for that “big twist” moment, then you will definitely love the ending. However, I didn’t necessarily need it to feel confident about my feelings about the book.

If you like a coming-of-age thriller with fantastic character development and emotional revealing of childhood secrets, then you will love this book!

This is a solid 4-star read for me. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for kindly giving me an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review. Publication date in the US is April 23, 2024.

I literally couldn’t put this book down from the moment I picked it up. Three sisters who went through foster care together. While not related by blood they have a stronger than ever relationship after what they endured together. It wasn’t the best foster situation and with multiple twists and turns throughout I couldn’t put the book down wanting to know what happened at the end. They are still consistently in touch and all find out that there are bones found under the house they used to live in as fosters. Who do the bones belong to? And will the police believe them? I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Wow!!! The book started off strong and then lost me for a bit as we learned more about Jessica, Alicia, and Norah’s upbringing at Wild Meadows. The twist(s) were worth the wait. I loved the emotional complexity between all of the characters. It gave a haunting portrayal of cyclical abuse that will stay with me for a long while. This was a great 5-star read that I’m excited to recommend to friends.

Loved this book. A different plot and really liked the 3 sisters. I enjoyed the story line and their characters. Finished it in a day. Another great read by Sally Hepworth. Loved the ending as well.

My first ARC thanks to NetGalley! Lost me about halfway through. I thought it started off good but there were too many POVs and the ending fell short for me.